


Shots Fired

by shadedScribe



Series: Sword and Sorcerystuck [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Also the trolls aren't all the same species in this one, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, And the trolls are all mid-level adventurers in over their heads, Gen, In that the kids are the more experienced ones, Multi, Not Epilogue Compliant, Role Reversal, Set in a fantasy setting based on the Pathfinder rules, Trans Roxy Lalonde, post-Cascade canon is just a suggestion box
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:41:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 33,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21816817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadedScribe/pseuds/shadedScribe
Summary: Alternia's efforts to capture the rebel heiress and her accomplices were very serious, but they made one fatal mistake: they shouldn't have let them wash up on Jade Harley's island.  Now they might just have a real fight on their hands.
Relationships: Dave Strider & Karkat Vantas, Feferi Peixes & Karkat Vantas, Jade Harley & Feferi Peixes, Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam
Series: Sword and Sorcerystuck [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1607413
Comments: 24
Kudos: 53





	1. Washed Up

**Author's Note:**

> So, this will probably be a series. It's set in a fantasy setting based on the rules and magic systems of Pathfinder, but not using the actual setting. Sort of like a less fourth wall-breaking version of the Order of the Stick. More relationships and characters will be added as they come up

As the morning sun peeked over the horizon to chase away the storm clouds of the night before and shine patches of glare onto the walls of her room, Jade Harley stretched, rubbed the sleep from her eyes, and arose to face the day. Not that there was much to face. The island’s animals were all in good shape, there was nothing wrong with the house, and John, Roxy, Rose, and Jane had managed to defeat Telrak the ancient green dragon without her help after all. After dressing, getting breakfast, and preparing her spells, Jade sat contentedly at one of her tower’s windows, sipping a cup of tea and idly scratching at Becquerel’s ears. Perhaps later she would take Bec out for a run through the hills, or work on crafting some more guns and ammunition, but for now, there was nothing to do but sit peacefully and watch the birds go by.

Huh. That was a lot of birds, actually. A suspiciously large amount, even. All flying in a mass in one direction as if something had panicked them. Jade looked out the window towards the south end of the island, from which the birds were fleeing. Clouds of dust and smoke were rising above the treetops, and as she watched there was a distant booming sound and a flash of lightning flickered. It seemed as though her peaceful day off was not to be, and that adventure boldly beckoned once again, shattering the calm like a hammer through a gingerbread house.

Typical, really.

Pausing only to snatch her rifle and a brace of healing potions, Jade ran out of her house towards the chaos, Bec loping along at her side.

Feferi Peixes really couldn’t be having a worse morning. For starters, it had been a very long one, beginning shortly after midnight when one of the empire’s patrol units had found their little ship as it scurried into neutral waters. It had been all they could do to avoid getting sunk immediately, and only some particularly ingenious spell-slinging on Aradia’s part had managed to get them any breathing room. Karkat had come up with a plan to have Tavros use his magic to whip up some nasty weather to cover them, then have the rest of them slip away on the ship’s longboat while Tavros and Aradia stayed with the ship and kept up the illusion that everyone else was onboard, drawing away the Alternian forces before using their shapeshifting abilities to escape. And it had almost worked, but Commodore Mariss had a ship circle back around just in case, and now they were all exhausted and washed ashore on an unfamiliar island, fighting for their lives and losing. 

The Alternian ship had come with a complement of Ruffiannihilatiors, who were dangerous but beatable, and two Subjugglators, who were only one of those things. Feferi was currently locked in combat with one of them, desperately batting away club strikes with her trident. Nepeta was still gamely swiping away at the other with her claws, but none of her strikes were doing much to harm it, and she was clearly only one good hit away from falling, despite Karkat’s best efforts with his limited healing magic. Sollux was handling the Ruffiannihilators- even as Feferi turned what brief attention she could spare to his fight he managed one last blast of lightning that fried the last of them- but he was almost completely out of spells. If they couldn’t come up with something, they were doomed; the empire may have wanted to take Feferi alive(if only to have an appropriately spectacular execution), but the others would all be killed on the spot. She had to think of something- it was her fault they were in this situation in the first place, if they hadn’t followed her and her plan they wouldn’t be being hunted. But there was no time to plan, not with a Subjugglator’s strikes bearing down on her like meteors. Sollux tried his last reserve, a Baleful Polymorph, but it struck and fizzled. The strikes were coming harder now; Feferi took a blow to the shoulder that felt like a horse had kicked her. Karkat had used up the last of his magic and was desperately darting around trying to distract the other Subjugglator from Nepeta, but it wasn’t working, and finally(no!), Nepeta slipped up, and a blow caught her in the ribs and sent her flying unconscious to the ground. The Subjugglator raised its club for a deathblow, as Sollux fired a futile Magic Missile, as Karkat lunged to try a block that he would never make, as Feferi was locked in place by the Subjugglator bearing down on her like a landslide, and Nepeta was going to die and then the others would all die and there was nothing she could-

CRACK!

A gunshot split the air and shattered a nearby rock.

“Hey!” called a voice. “What’s going on here?”

The startled combatants all froze before turning to look at the newcomer. Feferi carefully examined her; a human woman of average height, with brown skin and a mane of curly black hair, wearing practical dark green clothes and aiming what looked like some kind of strange musket wreathed in crackling lightning in their direction with a steady hand, a large white dog baring its teeth at her side.

One of the Subjugglators spoke in its rumbling voice.

“And just who in the hell are you supposed to be?”

“My name is Jade Harley, and this is my island. Wait, I recognize you- you’re Alternian. These aren’t your waters; what are you doing here?”

“We are on a mission from up on high to apprehend some most malicious malefactors for appropriate punishments. It’s none of your business, little sister.”

“Oh, yes it is. I know what you guys do to prisoners. I’m not letting you do that on my island. Or anywhere, really, but especially not here!”

Feferi watched Jade warily. She wasn’t confident that one person could turn the tide against two Subjugglators; but then again, this woman knew about them. She must know how strong they were, but she wasn’t backing down an inch. 

“Why don’t you two just leave,” said Jade. “I’m not gonna let you hurt these people.”

“If you get in our way,” replied a Subjugglator, “it is going to be most unpretty.”

Jade sighted down the barrel of her weapon.

“Seriously guys, you don’t want to do this.”

“I am afraid that we motherfuckin’ do,” rumbled a Subjugglator. 

The two of them turned towards Jade, readying their clubs. Feferi braced herself- maybe she could get a shot in at their backs when they attacked.

“Entangle!” Jade suddenly called. The plants on the ground rose up all of a sudden, binding all of them in place. The dog at Jade’s side darted out to jump at the closer Subjugglator, biting and growling. 

“Greater Named Bullet.” More magic shimmered around Jade’s weapon. The other Subjugglator ripped itself free of the plants and started charging towards her. Feferi urgently strained to free herself as well- Jade wasn’t that far away, and she might not be able to get enough shots in to down the enemy before it got to her-

Jade fired. The magic that she had used a moment ago clung to the bullet, and the Subjugglator’s side exploded in a shower of purple blood. Feferi gaped in shock; it could take whole squads of archers several minutes to down a Subjugglator. Jade kept firing, reloading her weapon as fast as lightning. The injured Subjugglator took two more shots and fell down dead; a fourth shot thudded into the other one. The dog dodged a blow and bulled into the foe, knocking it back a step towards Nepeta and Karkat. Karkat managed to pull an arm free and slashed a tendon with his sickle. More shots from Jade struck the enemy as it staggered away, still managing to knock Karkat to the ground with a backhand. With a roar of rage, the Subjugglator turned towards Nepeta’s prone form, determined to take at least one foe with it. Jade fired again; this shot was wreathed with negative energy that sunk into the creature with a terrible hiss as it struck. The Subjugglator stood still with shock for a moment, then toppled over like a felled tree. 

A sudden silence fell. Feferi, Karkat, and Sollux looked at each other and at the fallen enemies. Jade heaved a sigh of relief, then set her rifle down carefully before walking over to kneel next to Nepeta, the animated plants subsiding as she approached. The three of them rushed over to the two girls as Jade carefully turned Nepeta over and placed a gentle hand on her side.

“Cure Serious Wounds.” A rush of healing magic flowed from Jade, knitting Nepeta’s injuries back together. Nepeta slowly opened her eyes and tried to sit up.

“Who-”

“Careful, you’re still kinda messed up.” Jade pulled a pair of healing potions from her pockets, handing one to Feferi and one to Nepeta before reaching out to Karkat.

“Cure Light Wounds.” More healing flowed out. “Sorry if I can’t get it all. If I’d known I’d be doing this today I would have prepared more healing magic.”

Karkat spoke for all of them. “Who- how- why-”

Jade smiled warmly as she helped Nepeta carefully to her feet, keeping an arm slung across her shoulder for support.

“Tell you what. Why don’t we head back to my house, get you guys cleaned up, and talk it over. You guys seem like you probably have quite a story.” They nodded assent, and started walking inland, Nepeta still leaning on Jade.

“You know,” said Jade, “we didn’t really get introduced properly back there. Jade Harley, ranger extraordinaire, at your service.” The four of them introduced themselves in turn. Jade cocked an eyebrow when they got to Feferi.

“Peixes? Isn’t that a royal name?”

“It’s a long story.”

Jade smiled brightly again. 

“I look forward to hearing it then.”

And as they walked further in, with the morning sun shining warmly on them, Feferi thought it over, and realized that even though they were still stranded, on the run from the world’s most powerful empire, and still reeling from the failure of their desperate scheme against the empress, she couldn’t help but feel that things were looking up.


	2. New Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on species; the Alternian empire in this verse is a sea-based empire ruled by a species called 'Seadwellers' who are basically like they are in canon; Feferi and Eridan are seadwellers. There's a second, air-breathing subspecies of seadwellers called landdwellers(Gamzee) who serve as the empire's primary enforcers, especially on land. There are also mutant sea and landdwellers, who lack any of the benefits of their non-mutated counterparts; Karkat is still a mutant. Populations of other species that the Alternians conquer are organized into a caste system, favoring longer-lived and less mammalian species. All the other trolls are various species, both for variety and because I couldn't pass up the opportunity to have Vriska be a drow, Terezi a dragonborn(I know they're not in Pathfinder, shh), and Nepeta a catfolk.
> 
> As for character classes, they'll be in the fic as they come up, though I can answer questions in the comments if you like.

Jade’s home proved to be a brief walk north, a tall tower of white stone set atop the dormant volcano that was the centerpiece of the island. It was tall enough that Feferi would have felt silly for missing it earlier if they hadn’t been so occupied. The tower’s base edifice extended surprisingly far downwards, and it was only a short uphill walk to the front door. The door was a massive slab of reinforced stone thrumming with spell energy, but cunningly rigged to be easy to move; and at any rate Jade had apparently neglected to close it properly in her haste, she had to shoo out a few curious frogs as they went in. The five of them made their way up the great spiral staircase that wrapped itself around the tower’s central pillar, passing through huge rooms filled with food, supplies and trophies, as well as a large greenhouse, before emerging in a living space closer to the top. Jade’s dog (‘His name is Bec’, Jade had eagerly answered when Feferi had asked on the walk up) curled up under the kitchen table as soon as they got there.

“Why don’t you guys wash up while I put something together?” Jade said.

After Jade had thrown together a spread of bread, fruit, and dried fish, and dug into an astonishingly well-stocked closet of adventuring supplies to dig out more healing potions to cure any lingering pains, the five of them sat down together in her kitchen. Feferi looked around, taking the room in. It was astonishingly cluttered; there were hardly any flat surfaces that didn’t have a bunch of stuff strewn over them. Plants both useful and decorative were everywhere, as were crafting supplies and half-completed crafting projects, mostly firearms of various types but also scientific instruments and devices that Feferi could only guess at. Assorted dog-related items were scattered across the floor; little reminder notes were scattered everywhere. ‘Send new telescope lens to Rose,’ read one near Feferi. ‘Plan party for John,’ said another. It was probably the most lived-in space Feferi had ever seen.

After they had all eaten(though Nepeta was still working at the fish with some enthusiasm), Jade turned to Feferi.

“So,” she asked. “How did a member of the Alternian royal family wind up on the run from her own country’s elite warriors?”

And so Feferi (with numerous interjections from Karkat), spun the story of their unlikely band of friends, who had gone into the resistance one by one and pulled the others after them, and how they had organized from the shadows until Her Imperious Condescension’s plan to decentralize the government and put all of the Empire’s provinces under the direct rule of her personal favorites had jeopardized it. They had tried a desperate plan to assassinate the empress, and had failed miserably, and fled. And now here they were.

Jade sat looking contemplative for a moment, tapping her steepled fingertips together. 

“So the resistance is…”

“Scattered, but not done for just yet,” said Feferi. “If we can get our group back together and organize things, then between my allies on the diplomatic side of things, Karkat and Vriska’s underworld contacts, and everyone else’s connections to the various sects of anti-empire movements, we can get enough people away from Alternian territory to have a sort of fleet-in-being outside the empire. It’s not what we were hoping for, but it’s the best we can do at this point.”

“Tavros and Aradia ought to be catching up to us soon, assuming they got away. Which they ought to have, seeing as it was dark and stormy in the middle of the ocean and they can both turn into fish.” Karkat groused.

“Oh, I hope they made it out,” said Nepeta nervously. “If there were too many seadwellers-”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure Aradia got them out of there just fine,” Sollux reassured her.

“Yeah, exactly,” Karkat affirmed, though he seemed to be trying to reassure himself a little too. “Anyways, once they’re back, we’ve gotta figure out some way to get out of here. Maybe Tavros can turn into a whale, or Aradia knows how to make a corpse ship or some other morbidly on-brand shit.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Jade cut in. “Why such a rush? Are some of your meetups time-sensitive or something?”

“Not really,” said Feferi. “We lost track a bit in the chaos, but it looked like most of the others would have gotten away on Vriska’s ship.”

“Assuming she didn’t get there before the rest of them and sailed away, laughing her ass off all the way back to pirate partying,” Karkat muttered, too loudly for anyone to honestly say it was under his breath.

“Karkat, please,” said Sollux. “If she did that she’d feel bad for, like, at least two whole minutes.”

Feferi dragged a hand over her face in exasperation. 

“Come on guys, don’t be like that. I know that we’re all having a rough time and we’re all stressed and worried about everyone who’s not here right now, but if we can’t stick together, the empire already wins. Besides, if Vriska was that unwilling to put herself in danger she wouldn’t have helped with the assassination in the first place.”

Karkat glanced down at the floor for a moment. 

“Right. Sorry.”

“Anyways”, Feferi continued, “we should try to meet up with them as soon as possible, but we can’t coordinate anything until Aradia or Sollux can get us a Sending spell. But we can hardly stay here- you’ve already done more for us than I could have asked for, and we can’t stick around and bring the Alternian fleet down on your head.”

“Why not?” said Jade, grinning impishly.

“Oh, come on.” Karkat groaned. “I’ll grant that what you did to those Subjugglators was incredibly badass, but you can’t seriously think you can fight the whole Alternian army.”

“Well I’m not gonna stand on the beach challenging them to duels one at a time, but I’m sure as heck not afraid of Alternia. And I’ve got some friends I’m gonna call up who can be a ton of help here. Besides, it was probably gonna happen anyways. The general path of Alternian expansion is headed towards this island, and I’m really very attached to it.”

Karkat could only blink in startlement. 

“You’re really going to just up and go to war with the fucking Alternian Empire like it’s some kind of loose hinge on your front door that you just noticed and were like ‘gosh, I’d better do something about that today.” he finally managed.

“Yep!”

There was a pause.

“You’ve known us for, like, an hour.” said Karkat.

“Hey, it wouldn’t be the first time I got into a crazy adventure because some nice people who needed a hand washed up on my beach. I’m not gonna stop you from leaving if you want, but don’t worry about putting me in danger or anything like that.”

Feferi looked Jade in the eye. 

“You really want to help us?”

Jade nodded. “I’ve done a lot of wild stuff in my life, and if there’s one thing that I’ve learned, it’s that you can never really go wrong helping out someone who’s trying to do something good.”

Feferi could see nothing in her face but simple earnestness, and she smiled. “In that case, thank you. I think we’ll stick around for a bit then.”

“Make yourselves at home. I’m going to go call some of my friends.” And with that she ducked upstairs, leaving only her dog curled up under the table.

The four of them were silent for a moment, before Karkat spoke up.

“Well, this has been a day.”

“And I don’t think it’s even two in the afternoon yet,” Sollux snarked.

“Oh, this is great!” Nepeta enthused. “I can’t believe how well things are working out all of a sudden.”

“This has been a pretty lucky break,” Feferi agreed. “If Jade’s friends are as strong as her, we might be able to defend this island well enough to use it as a rallying point.”

“The logistics might be tricky,” Karkat pointed out. “Though if this island is rich enough to provide for some forage, that might help.”

“Vriska might be able to arrange for some supply deliveries,” mused Feferi. “Though we’ll have to plan-”

“You guys go ahead and do that.” said Sollux, yawning. “I’m going to go get some rest and get my spells back.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for Aradia and Tavros,” said Nepeta, already moving over to the window.

Karkat pulled a slightly waterlogged bundle of paperwork out of his pack before starting to look around the room for a map of the region as Sollux carefully moved a few potted plants and a half-assembled blunderbuss off of the couch before curling up to sleep. Feferi glanced over at the sunlight streaming through the window and adjusted the curtains so that the light would hit the table better. She thought about everything that had happened since they had washed ashore and smiled. She had definitely been right earlier- things were looking up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jade met Rose when she washed up on the beach, she's used to it. Some of the backstory alluded to here will definitely get expanded on at some point.
> 
> Also, for anyone unfamiliar with the term, a 'fleet in being' is a term used in naval warfare to describe a fleet that, rather than being risked in open battle where it might be destroyed, stays in a safe port and avoids battle, thus keeping itself intact and forcing the enemy to dedicate resources that might have been used elsewhere to keeping an eye on it. It's not used much nowadays, since there aren't any safe ports now that airplanes are a thing, but there you go.


	3. Old Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's a little long but I couldn't find a good place to break it up.
> 
> Also, in case it wasn't clear, everyone's in like their early twenties here. The kids have more experience because they started adventuring earlier on account of having three irresponsible guardians and one responsible guardian who had a lot of nonsense to deal with(poor Dad.)

Jade glanced back downstairs at the little party convalescing in her kitchen; the goblin wizard curled up on the couch, snoring like a beehive; the catfolk woman trying very hard not to fall asleep staring out the window; the seadweller heiress sitting at the kitchen table looking at a map; and the-

Actually, she wasn’t entirely sure what Karkat was. Half-orc maybe? Oh well, it wasn’t as if it was any of her business. Anyways, he was digging through paperwork and rambling nonstop about numbers and ships, marking up the map as he went in different colors of ink, occasionally pausing to answer one of Feferi’s questions or make a change in response to something she brought up. 

If you had asked Jade how she thought her day might go when she had gotten up this morning, this would not have come up. But hey, like she’d said, this wasn’t her first rodeo. She’d met lots of great friends through this sort of thing.

Speaking of which…

The Jewels of the Companion Mind were a set of exceptionally rare artifacts that allowed anyone who had one, with a little focus, to mentally contact anyone or ones who had one of the others over any distance. Jade and her three closest friends had gone to a lot of trouble to get a foursome, since letters were nice but kind of slow, and only one of them could cast Sending.

Jade fiddled a little with the green gemstone set in a simple jet bracelet that was her jewel, then focused on the mental connection, sending out a gentle push towards the minds of her friends. In a few moments, all three of them had responded, and were waiting patiently for her to start talking.

“Hey guys!” she started.

“Hey,” drawled Dave.

“Hi,” John chirped.

“Hello to you too,” said Rose.

“So, a couple of things. First, John, Rose, I heard that the dragon thing went well.”

“We kicked his ass!” John cheered.

“Indeed.” said Rose. “And he turned out to have a surprisingly full library. I have some very interesting books, and a Tome of Clear Thought that he hadn’t had time to peruse yet.”

“I got a pair of Gloves of Unfolding Wind.” added John.

“I got a rock.”

“Dave, it was a ruby the size of a cantaloupe inscribed with magical runes that let you use it to store sounds, including your bardic songs.” Rose pointed out, exasperatedly fond.

“Still a rock.”

“You didn’t even help with the dragon.”

Dave made a little sound that got across the impression of a shrug surprisingly well.

“Anyway,” Jade continued. “Speaking of inscribing things, Rose, that lens you needed for your new Cadiowhatsit telescope is ready for pickup.”

“Catadioptric, and thank you.”

“Lastly, I’m joining up with an armed conflict against the Alternian Empire.”

There was a pause.

“Burying the lede a little there, I see.” said Rose. Though the mental link didn’t provide images, Jade had the distinct impression that Rose looked rather bemused.

“Not that anyone’s got a problem with it,” said John, “but this is a little sudden, isn’t it? What happened?”

“Well, some friendly people washed up on my beach this morning.”

“Oh for the love of-”

“Seriously,” said Dave, “we need to do an archeological expedition. Make sure Harley’s island isn’t actually an ancient burial ground for lucky rabbit’s feet or a magic magnet for poor lost waifs or some shit.”

“I think Bec would have dug it up by now if there were rabbits,” Jade replied, amused. “But you’re always welcome to have an archeological expedition if you like. Anyway, a rebel Alternian heiress and a few of her friends washed up, pursued by some Subjugglators, who I shot.”

“Nice,” Dave cut in.

“Thanks! Anyways, it turns out that they’re leaders in an Alternian resistance movement which is in a very perilous position right now, so I offered my help, since they needed it and we were probably gonna fight Alternia at some point anyway.”

“That makes sense.” said Rose. “Should I bring us over?”

“Probably, yeah. I think there’s still some Alternian forces around, and we might need a little muscle soon.”

“I’ll get going then. John, Dave, can you both be ready in an hour?”

“Yeah.”

“Yep.”

“Very well. We’ll all see each other shortly then. Take care, Jade.”

The three of them drifted out of her mind, and Jade turned her attention back to her room, gathering up her various supplies and personal magic items she had left lying around. She would probably need them soon.

Karkat pored tiredly over yet another set of notes on the members of their resistance; who, where, how many, how willing, how much actual use, and so on. After hammering it out with Feferi for a while, they had concluded that Jade’s island would be a viable base of operations, but only if they could get Vriska to arrange for supply deliveries through her piratical and naval contacts. Of course, they couldn’t just ask Vriska until she was actually here, since there were a lot of details involved that couldn’t be conveyed through Sending spells. Not that they could even use a Sending spell, since Sollux was still recovering and Aradia was still out(she and Tavros were fine, surely, there was no reason they couldn’t have gotten away, it had been a good plan) and fucking Eridan had somehow never learned how to cast a godsdamned Sending spell. And so Karkat was left poring over sheet after sheet of figures again in case he had missed something the last four times, and he definitely wasn’t trying to distract himself from worrying about anything, no siree, not him. 

Jade had popped back downstairs a while ago, properly kitted out in green-and-black dyed studded leather and loads of gear, and announced that some of her adventuring friends would be here in about an hour, and that meanwhile she was going to inventory some of the stuff downstairs. Feferi had volunteered to help, and so Karkat was left up here, keeping an eye on the window and an eye on Sollux and an eye on Nepeta, who would have probably fallen asleep by now if she had been sitting down, and reading over paperwork. Why did he have to be the only one good at paperwork in this damn resistance. Well no, that was a lie; Terezi had quite a faculty for it when she could be convinced to do it instead of foisting it off on him, an occurrence which came around about as frequently as an alignment of the planets. Feferi made a game attempt, but was easily distracted when people came up and she started remembering personal details about them. Everyone else was hopeless. Of course, everyone else was a lot better than him at other important resistance activities, like sneaking around and killing people, so he couldn’t complain too much(that was a lie, he very much could), but still. Fucking paperwork. 

Karkat was on the verge of going to see if Jade’s kitchen had any good stimulants lying around when Nepeta suddenly jerked fully awake at the windowsill. 

“They’re here! That’s them! Hey guys!” she yelled, leaning out and waving. A few moments later Aradia flew in, carrying a sleeping Tavros.

“A little help here?”

Nepeta and Aradia managed to get Tavros arranged semi-comfortably on an armchair before Aradia slumped to lay flat on her back on the floor.

“Took you long enough,” grumbled Karkat, slouching with relief.

Aradia glanced over at him and smiled one of her more enigmatic smiles.

“Sorry! I’d have sent a message, but I’m out of fifth level spells. And about all of the other ones too, actually; I’d have a hard time fighting a flumph right now. Where are we, anyway?”

“We are currently in the home of one Jade Harley, a powerful and possibly slightly loony adventurer, who saw us fighting Subjugglators on the beach, killed them for us, invited us home, and, after hearing our story decided to join our fight against the Alternian Empire.”

“What, just like that?”

“That’s what I said!”

No longer needing to watch the window, Nepeta had curled up in a ball and gone to sleep.

“Apparently,” Karkat continued, “she was probably going to wind up fighting them anyway when they tried to expand to her island, so she figured she may as well get a head start. Some of her adventuring friends should be here in a bit too.”

“Well, isn’t that nice.” Aradia yawned widely, as Sollux cracked an eye open just long enough to see she was there before rolling back over.

“Aradia, Tavros, thank goodness,” spilled Feferi, rushing back up the stairs. “Are you both alright?”

“A little banged up, but mostly just tired,” Aradia replied.

“Well there’s plenty of healing potions in the closet over there if you need them,” said Jade, coming up the stairs behind Feferi. “Jade Harley, pleased to meet you.”

“Hi Jade. I’m Aradia. I’ll talk more when I don’t feel like my skeleton is about to fall out. Thanks for killing people who were attacking my friends when I wasn’t there.”

“You’re welcome. Have a good sleep.”

“ I wi-,” Aradia passed out mid-word.

“Well, that’s one weight off our shoulders,” said Feferi. “Maybe the rest of us should get some sleep too.”

“I’ll sleep later,” said Karkat. “Jade, do you have any coffee?”

“Regular coffee, mild coffee, shitty coffee that keeps you awake, or really good coffee that doesn’t let you sleep for half a week?”

“That last one please.”

“Top left cupboard, silver bag tied with purple string.”

“Thank you.”

As Karkat set about getting a kettle ready, Jade ran back upstairs to dig out pillows and blankets, which she carefully arranged around the various sleepers. Feferi was glancing between him and the map they had been working on.

“Are you sure you don’t want to get some sleep?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway.”

As the coffee brewed, Karkat, forced to admit that any further paperwork would just be pointless, looked around for something to do, and decided to alphabetize Jade’s appallingly disorganized bookshelf. He was about halfway through the Ks when there was a rush of cold air and a flicker of shadow, and three people teleported into the room.

“Guys!” Jade rushed to catch all three of her friends in a bear hug, which they took with the familiar grace of those who had been on the receiving end of such hugs many times before. Jade released them, then the introductions began. 

John Egbert was a human man with Jade’s brown skin and long black hair, clean-shaven and with sapphires for eyes, wearing a blue cape and sky-blue half-plate that was cut to be more agile-looking, and carrying a large warhammer. He greeted everyone cheerfully, a big grin on his face.

Rose Lalonde was an exceptionally striking tiefling woman, with skin that was black and patched all over with mottled white as though she had gotten vitiligo from brushing against a stray galaxy, and seemed to shift between the white patches glowing against the black backdrop and the black almost having an inky life against pale white. Her hair was pale white and faintly glowing, and the sclera of her violet eyes were black. The overall effect made her look incredibly inhuman, even for a tiefling. She wore black and violet robes in the style of a spellcaster, and greeted everyone calmly and politely.

Dave Strider was a tiefling man with ruby-red skin and a pair of horns sweeping elegantly up from above his ears to crown four inches above his head of curly brownish-gold hair. His eyes were obscured by a pair of dark glasses, and he wore red and black colored leather armor and a red cape, the latter partially concealing the longsword strapped across his back. He made his introductions with an air of detached nonchalance.

“Now that everyone’s here,” said Jade when they were finished, “we should try to contact the rest of your group. Rose can cast Sending, who should she try first?”

“Vriska, probably.” said Feferi.

“Very well. Can you describe this Vriska well enough for me to find her with the spell?” asked Rose. “Personality, as well as physical details.” Feferi started talking.

“Drow woman, about six feet tall and a bit lanky, long hair that she dyes black, dark blue eyes, missing her left eye and wears a patch, has an artificial left arm made of animated steel, almost thin enough to make you worry if she eats enough, usually wears fancy navy-style clothes in dark blue and black-”

“Constantly acts like she’s some kind of incredible hero who’s condescending a little bit just to talk to you.”

“Karkat! But yeah, kind of. She’s a bard, and she has this fancy heirloom sabre that she went out of her way to learn how to use.”

“She’s always playing with some kind of game of chance or fortune-telling stuff, especially dice. And she never hesitates to point out a weakness or mistake in someone who’s not as strong or self-assured as her.”

“That’s also kind of true,” Feferi admitted. “Though she also compliments people she respects.”

“Yeah, all two of them.” Feferi gently elbowed Karkat in the ribs.

“She does have kind of an…” Feferi pondered a moment. “..aggressive personality. Anything else?”

“No, I think that will do. What should I ask her?”

“Where is she right now is the big one. Also who’s with her and their overall status.” Feferi thought a moment. “I can’t think of anything else you could fit in a Sending.”

Rose looked thoughtful for a moment, before nodding.

“I believe I’m ready to start. Please keep distractions to a minimum.”

“Wait. How will she know it’s legit?” asked John.

“Oh, right.” said Feferi. “There’s a password we set up in case of illusions and shapeshifters. It’s ‘aphelion’. Good thing you thought of that.”

“‘Aphelion’. Alright. Anything else?” Rose asked again.

“No.”

“Are we sure?” Rose was smirking a little. “Because I’d hate to be five minutes into casting when someone remembers something again.”

“Pretty sure.” said Feferi.

“Just cast it. Please.” said Karkat.

“As you wish.” Rose fell into the ten minute trance required to send a twenty-five word message anywhere in the universe.

“Once Vriska’s here we can see if we can get enough of a supply chain going to use this island as a base.” Feferi explained to the others.

“Money’s no problem,” Jade said cheerfully. “We’ve all got lots, and if we need more we can always go out and find some dragon who’s being a jackass.”

“Finding people willing to ship stuff with Alternia breathing down their neck might be harder,” Karkat groused. “But I guess if anyone can, it’s probably Vriska.”

“Cool.” said Dave. “So. Are you all, like, coupers or rebels.”

“Coupers?” asked John with a chuckle.

“Coupers, coupifiers, coup-havers, persons engaged in coup-having, whatever, I don’t know what the hell the word is supposed to be.”

“Plotters?” Jade suggested.

“Sure. Anyways, are you guys fighting Alternia because you don’t like the way it’s run and all, or is this just because Magenta here wants to be empress instead?”

“What kind of a word is ‘coup’ anyway?” John mused.

“I don’t have any particular desire to be empress anymore,” Feferi answered. “Not since I was younger. If it comes to me, and I think I can do some good with it, I’ll take it, but I won’t seek it out. Our goal is to fight Alternia’s oppressions, particularly the caste system it sets up.”

“Alright, that’s good. Don’t want to fight one evil empress just to help another one, you know. Not that you look evil. You actually kind of look mostly harmless.” Dave rambled.

“Um.. thanks?”

“I mean, why even have the ‘p’ in there if you’re not gonna pronounce it,” said John, still stuck on the subject of the word ‘coup’. “Hey, Dave, why do you think they have it in there if they don’t pronounce it?”

“It’s all a big conspiracy man. Big Vowel oppressing the strong consonants. If c and p both get together it’s consonants beginning and end. Gotta push that p out, disenfranchise it and shit. Coup’s gotta be a mushy word so it counts for the vowels. It’s the deciding vote in Word Congress.”

“No kidding.” said John, looking equal parts fascinated and bemused by Dave’s ramble. Jade bore a similar expression.

“Yeah, man, it’s like, the vowels versus the consonants. The consonants are the real people, the real hardworking letters who work all day in the book fields so they can come home to their loving consonant wives and kids. It’s all about keeping the ink on the table for these guys, but the money’s tight and shit, and it’s because Big Vowel’s keeping them down, raising taxes and breaking strikes and buying off that traitor y, all so they can be Rich Business Asshole Guys, and the consonants gotta band together and fight it.”

Dave had started delivering his ramble with a tone and style of gesture pulled straight off of the stage of some impressive high theatre drama. The ironicness would have been impressive if it wasn’t so irritating.

“And so the consonants are out getting the vote, but Big Vowel is out buying the vote, and every Vote Day the vowels win, but the consonants keep fighting, they’re determined, they’re for the Consonant Way and it gets closer and closer, until the vowels have to break out the fuckin gerrymandering and shit to keep their slimy claws on power. But there’s so many consonants, and they keep fighting and having rallies and soon even the gerrymandering is in trouble and it looks like the consonants are finally gonna have their day.”

Ye gods, did he ever stop talking?

“But the vowels can’t have that, no, they’ve all got, like five yachts apiece and gold-leaf toilet paper and shit, and once you’ve had gold-leaf toilet paper there’s no going back man, so they find the swing state, and it’s ‘coup’ and they send all their guys over to Coup City or whatever the fuck and start with some major oppressing-”

Karkat was mercifully distracted from Dave’s tale of alphabet political strife by the appearance of a small spectral figure in front of his face; a rather nervous-looking elf man, wearing the official uniform of a licensed Alternian wizard for hire. Wait, was that a Sending? Why would this guy be making a Sending to him?

“Sending from Kanaya Maryam,” said the little figure, who now that Karkat looked at him seemed almost like he was being held up at swordpoint. “Password: aphelion.”

“And so the ‘p’s start making spears and *mmmph*” Dave’s ramble was abruptly cut off by Karkat slapping a hand over his mouth.

“Am alone in Revampa with various items. Alternians searching for me, no obvious escape routes. Please advise best course.”

Shit shit shit shit shit. Why wasn’t she with Vriska and the others? Had Vriska not waited for her? Could they do anything for her? Rose could teleport, right? Could she effect a rescue? It was their only chance. How the fuck had she wound up in the city of Revampa in the opposite direction from the rest of them?

“Get away and hide. We have new allies, may be able to effect magical rescue. Don’t worry about saving anything but yourself. Please be safe.” Karkat could only hope that the wizard was sufficiently intimidated to pass the message along properly.

The rest of the room was looking at him a little oddly, and he suddenly noticed that his hand was still over Dave’s mouth, a fact which the man seemed to find more amusing than anything.

“Karkat, what’s wrong?” asked Feferi.

“I just got a Sending from Kanaya. She’s stuck alone in Revampa, and they’re hunting her.”

“Fuck! No!” Feferi swore as violently as Karkat had ever seen her swear before. “How did that happen? Is Rose almost done with her spell, because we’ll need her to-”

“Any second now.” said Jade, who had been keeping an eye on the clock.

Even as she spoke, Rose completed the spell and spoke her message.

“Sending from Feferi Peixes. Password: aphelion. Please advise as to your current location, companions and status. Do you need assistance? We’ve established a potential base.”

There was a moment’s pause as Rose listened to Vriska’s reply. 

“She’s two miles north of Remise Island, with some people named Terezi, Equius, Eridan, and Gamzee. They’re under attack by a squadron of Alternian Aquarasers, but can probably get away if they lose them.” Rose looked around the room and saw everyone’s agitated faces.

“Did I miss something?”

“Can you teleport to Revampa?” Jade asked urgently.

“Revampa?” answered Rose. “Certainly; the city is near a number of important Horrorterror sites. I’ve been there a number of times. I can also teleport to Remise Island, though not specifically to Vriska’s vessel.”

“How many teleports do you have left?”

“Three.”

“John, if Rose gets you to Remise Island, can you fly to Vriska’s ship and help her out?”

“Sure, though I don’t know what her ship looks like. Though I guess I could just look for the ship being attacked by Aquarasers.”  
“The Arachne is a slightly oversized frigate, painted dark blue, with spider themed decorations and a winged sailor with a sword as the figurehead,” Feferi quickly informed him.

“Thanks.”

“Alright then, I’ve got a plan,” said Jade. “Rose will teleport John, Dave, and myself to Remise Island. John will go help Vriska from there, while the rest of us head to Revampa to rescue Kanaya. Once we find her, Rose can use the last teleport to get us away. John, make sure you remember where this island is on a map so you can show Vriska. Feferi, what does Kanaya look like?”

“Lizardfolk woman, tall, jade scales, wears colorful clothes, carries a sawtooth sabre, tends to be deliberate.” 

“Right, that’s enough to go on. You guys stay here and keep an eye out. If any Alternians show up, start barricading things. Everyone got it?”

A chorus of affirmatives answered.

“Awesome. Let’s go.” Becquerel bounded up from under the table to join Jade as she, John, Dave gathered around Rose for the teleport.

“Good luck out there!” called Feferi.

“Thank you!” said Jade. “Rose, whenever you’re ready.”

Rose nodded and gathered herself for a moment, then in a rush of cold breeze, they were off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure Dave's rambles work quite so well outside of a pesterlog format. C'est la vie.


	4. On The Wind

As he soared through the skies above Remise Island, John Egbert threw his head back and let the breeze stream through his hair. No matter how often he was in the air, he never got tired of flying. Something about being totally free to move about and feeling the rush on your skin was just electrifying. And since he’d been growing his hair out, the feeling of the breeze was even nicer. There was just something about the wind, it almost made him want to try wearing a skirt or something. Maybe he had a little sylph in him somewhere.

No time to get all thoughtful- there were people needing help! And other people needing to get whacked with a hammer. John scanned the horizon for ships- there were quite a few, Remise Island being near some major shipping routes. Still, Feferi had made it sound like Vriska’s ship was pretty distinctive. Fancy ship in blue with spider decorations…. there it was! The sea serpent attacking it was pretty distinctive too. 

As John approached, he got a better look at the fight. The Alternian Aquarasers (was that supposed to be like ‘Aqua-Eraser’?; what was with Alternians and compound words anyway?) were the only ones attacking the ship at the moment; the regular imperial navy ships were way back. Two of them appeared to have sailed into each other, one was on fire, and the rest were apparently a lot slower than the Arachne. That left only the Aquarasers, though maybe ‘only’ wasn’t the word for a squadron of elite warriors and casters riding a giant sea serpent, backed up by more casters and archers riding lightning-spitting sea drakes. The ship was giving a good accounting of itself, with cannons spitting fire and spells flying out. A few of the attacking Alternians had fallen, and John saw a sea drake take a cannonball square in the chest and plummet dead into the sea. Still, the enemy had the advantage; a group of drakes arranged themselves into a line and swooped on the ship, spitting balls of conductive lightning in a coordinated attack that ravaged the top deck. The warriors on the serpent took advantage of the chaos to launch a boarding action, too. 

Alrighty then. Time for some hammering.

John rose high above the fight below, then cut out his cape’s flight spell, falling down with his warhammer braced for a blow.

“Incoming!” he yelled gleefully as he fell.

Just as planned, the sea serpent heard him and lifted its head up to look just in time to take a gravity-assisted whack in the face. As the creature roared in pain, John restored his flight and lunged at its riders, swatting an archer off the side like a tennis ball. A warrior lunged with a spear that skittered off of John’s breastplate; John’s answering blow crumpled his foe’s armor like tinfoil. One of enemy casters managed to throw up a Wall of Force just in time to block the next strike; another flung out a Web that left John partially stuck. A few of the other warriors were clambering around the serpent to try and flank him too. This was a little problematic, but if he could just-

“Hey, hammerboy!”

John turned to see who had called out; a drow woman dressed like a fancy pirate captain, presumably Vriska, standing by the ship’s helm, and just now dispatching an enemy soldier with a swing of her sabre.

“Can you take a hit?” she asked.

“Sure, probably.”

“Awesome. Shout!”

An ear-splitting burst of sonic energy washed over John and everyone nearby. To John, a sturdy fighter, it was a brief ringing in his ears and an equally brief unpleasant vibration. To the soldiers clustering around him, it was a devastating blow; they staggered and clutched at their bleeding ears. John took advantage of the opening to pull himself free of the webbing and slip around the wall of force, crushing an enemy caster. The warriors pulled themselves together and rushed him, but without the webbing holding him down, they didn’t have a chance; one by one they fell under crushing blows of John’s hammer. The second enemy caster lashed out with a fire spell; it only mildly singed John, who waded over and swatted him too before flying over to land on Vriska’s ship.

The deck was a chaotic melee, though there were a few fighters that stood out; the teal-scaled dragonborn woman wielding twin short swords that glowed with divine light, the bulky elf man lashing out using half of a sundered bow as a club, the landdweller man clubbing people to death in a hysterical rage, the seadweller man firing off jets of fire and lightning, and Vriska herself, slashing away with a sabre enthusiastically. After cutting down another soldier, she paused to yell at everyone.

“Come on, you losers! You can do better than that! These guys are scrubs, kick their asses already!”

As she spoke, John felt the familiar tingle of bardic magic settle over him. Aww, she’d included him. He took the opportunity to smash a few more enemies; Vriska’s crew seemed to be doing better with her magic on their side too. Vriska hacked her way over to him.

“Not that I’m complaining, mind you,” she said, “but who the hell are you?”

“I’m John. One of my friends met some of your friends and I guess we’re in a war together now.”

“What, just like that?”

“Hey, we’re adventurers. This sort of thing happens when you’re adventurers.”

“Ha! True.” Vriska turned back toward the crew. “Put your backs into it, come on! We’re way too great to die in a lame fight like this!”

John was used to less insulting bardic magic, but hey, whatever worked. And it was working- the battle on the deck was tilting in their favor. There was still the serpent and the drakes though; where were they again? Just as John looked around, there was an enormous splash. Someone had managed to regain control of the sea serpent, and was directing it full speed at the ship to try and sink it through ramming. Vriska swore like, well, a sailor, and sprinted back to the helm, yelling about bracing up the foreyard or something similarly nautical. Of course, everyone was too busy fighting to do anything else, and though Vriska’s dramatic spin of the wheel looked very impressive, it was far too late to turn away. As everyone who had noticed what was happening panicked, and Vriska tried vainly to instill enough order for people to listen to her orders, John stepped up to the railing, gripped his warhammer in both hands, and braced. 

Just before the serpent struck the ship, John struck it a mighty blow right in the snout, checking its rush. The creature gave an awful roar and recoiled, shaking its head back and forth and whining in pain. Whoever had retaken control urged it back forward, but it hesitated, clearly not eager to get a taste of John’s hammer again. The controller yelled furiously, trying to drive it on; before he had any success, John let fly with his hammer, catching him square in the head. Free from its master, the beast took the opportunity to wheel around and dart off like an arrow towards the horizon. 

First problem solved. Now, where were those dra-

ZAP! John and everyone else got a face full of lightning as the drakes made another pass in close formation. This one struck harder than the last; with hardly anyone on the guns and their seadweller caster apparently out of spells and reduced to flailing around with a wand of Magic Missile, the fliers had free reign.

“Damn it!” Vriska slammed a fist down on the helm as John called his hammer back. “If it weren’t for those knockoff dragons, we could clear the deck and get out of here in a flash. But I don’t know how-”

“Vriska!” called the dragonborn woman. “Those drakes are intelligent, and it looks like they’ve been taught to understand Common.”

“Hey, you’re right! Good call, Terezi!”

As the drakes grouped up again, Vriska focused for a second.

“Mass Suggestion.”

Most of the drakes promptly got that glazed-over look that indicated they’d fallen under the spell. Vriska grinned like a shark and spoke again, her voice dripping with magic.

“Man, those riders you guys have must be all heavy and annoying. You should mess them up.”

Compelled by the spell, most of the drakes promptly turned on their masters, and the previously well-drilled formation collapsed into a chaotic ball of scales, armor, and blood. 

“Yeah!” Vriska crowed. “Suck on that, losers!” 

John and Vriska both turned their attention to what was left of the boarders; between their efforts and those of their allies, the fight was over in short order. 

As the crew scurried about, throwing the dead bodies over the side and dragging the injured over to Terezi for healing, Vriska walked about and inspected the damage to the ship, pulling people aside to assign them tasks. Their laughing barbarian had fallen asleep by the bow, and no one seemed particularly inclined to wake him.

“Eridan!” yelled Vriska, looking at a severed piece of rigging. “Get your useless ass over here and cast some Mending.”

“Hey,” whined the seadweller caster, who was apparently named Eridan. “I was doing fine. I killed a bunch of guys.”

“We all killed a bunch of guys! And some of us didn’t run out of gas before the end.”

“Screw you, Vriska.”

“You wish! Now seriously, we need this rigging.”

Eridan grumbled and set about casting the ten-minute cantrip as Vriska finished her inspection of the ship.

“Well, she’ll sail. John, that Sending from the weird tiefling lady said something about maybe having a base?”

“Her name is Rose,” John cheerfully informed her, “and yes, it’s my friend-slash-sister’s island. It’s at…” John paused to think for a moment. “0°57’21’’S, 174°45’34’’W, which I guess means something to you seafaring types.”

“Hell yeah it does,” enthused Vriska. “That’s only like a day’s sail away.”

“Cool.”

“Excuse me.” The elf man John had seen earlier had wandered over to them. “Did I hear correctly that you have been in contact with our other compatriots recently? If so, did you happen to see a catfolk woman named Nepeta? Is she alright?”

“Well, we didn’t get introduced, but there was a catfolk lady taking a nap in a sunbeam at Jade’s place, so I’m guessing that was her. She seemed fine.”

Relief flooded into every corner of the man’s expression.

“That is very good to hear. Thank you.”

“No problem, um-”

“Equius.”

“Equius, right.”

“See, I told you she’d be fine,” Vriska cut in. “Now go help move that spar that got knocked off the foremast.”

Equius nodded and walked away. Terezi, having patched up everyone she could, wandered over.

“Vriska, there’s a few more people who could a healing spell if you’ve got any to spare.”

“Including you, I see. Cure Moderate Wounds.”

“Thanks,” said Terezi as the cut on her face knit itself closed, “but I would have been fine.”

“Hey, you kicked ass. You deserve a healing spell. Speaking of which, are you all good, John?”

“Yeah, I barely got singed. I’ve got some potions too if we need them.”

:John, is it?” asked Terezi, turning towards him with a carnivore’s smile and unseeing red eyes.

“Yep. That’s me.”

“I’m Terezi. You’re very good at whacking things, John.”

“Thanks. You seemed pretty good at stabbing things from what I could see.”

“I am.” Terezi sniffed the air for a moment. “You smell like blueberries and sky.”

“I do?”

“Oh yes, you’re very blue.”

“Well, I actually am wearing blue...”

“Terezi’s other senses have gotten really good since she lost her eyesight.” Vriska explained.

‘Really good’ maybe didn’t cover it, if she could smell friggin colors. Seriously, how did she do that?

“Anyway, once the healing’s done, I’ll set our course for that island. John and Terezi, can you two keep a lookout for any more enemies who might come our way?”

“Yeah, sure.”

John watched Vriska for a moment, as she moved through her injured crew members alternately berating and praising them while casting her healing spells. Terezi had clambered up the mast into the crow’s nest, and John gently floated up to hover next to her. They both scanned the seas in silence for a little while, before Terezi turned towards him.

“So, have you hammered anything interesting lately?”

This was going to be an interesting experience.


	5. Rescue

As the three of them flickered into existence in an out-of-the-way alley in one of Revampa’s seedier neighborhoods, Rose Lalonde reflected that finding this Kanaya person might have been easier if they had just brought one of her friends with them. Alas, years of solving everything with just the four of them were a hard habit to break. They’d have to manage.

Jade was already peering carefully around the wall at the end of the alley.

“No obvious commotions or chases,” she reported, “but there’s a lot more Alternian soldiers around than I think is normal. I guess the empress takes assassination attempts pretty personally.”

“Her sending said she was being hunted,” said Dave, “so every second counts. We should probably split up. I’ll ninja into whatever kinda HQ they’ve got around here and see if I can find anything.”

“I’ll take Bec over to some of the main streets and see if we can pick anything up.” said Jade.

“And I will attempt some divinations.” said Rose.

“Right. Call on the jewels if you find anything and we’ll meet up to get out of here.” Jade smiled at the two of them. “Good luck.”

She jogged casually out of the alley, Bec loping at her side. Dave jumped on a windowsill and vaulted up to take to the rooftops, and Rose sat down to start a divination ritual. After carefully drawing arcane sigils in the dirt, burning incense, and sacrificing a pinch of crushed jet to the wind, she sat and focused for some minutes before a thought came unbidden into her head.

‘The Outcast’s District is lovely this time of year,’ it ran.

Well. That was a pretty clear direction. More clear than usual, actually. She rose and started walking over to the Outcast’s District, which was happily only a little ways away. Heads turned towards her as she walked down the street, but not as many as there would have been in other cities. Revampa was built around a number of ancient Horrorterror sites, and was consequently a center of occult culture; even a star-and-void-touched tiefling wasn’t that unusual of a sight here.

Rose had just reached the entrance of the Outcast’s District, when a pompous voice rang out.

“You there!”

Rose turned to see a seadweller in the uniform of an Alternian officer, flanked by a half dozen soldiers.

Putting on her most cloyingly saccharine demeanor, Rose smiled at him. “Yes?”

“You look like a spellcaster, right? Do you have any magic for prying into other people’s minds?”

“Indeed.”

“Then come with me. The Alternian empire requires your services. Do a good job and there might even be something in it for you.”

Rose nodded and followed the officer deeper into the district. She could kill them all rather easily, of course, but she had a feeling about what they might need her for.

They ducked into a run-down two-story hostel and went upstairs, and that was when Rose first met Kanaya. And, oh my; Feferi could have saved some effort on her description if she had simply said to look for the most handsome lizardfolk woman Rose had ever seen. How did she get her scales like that? And those _eyes_ . 

(Was it weird to notice how attractive someone was while they were tied to a chair? Oh well, she was an oracle of the Dark Tapestry. Sticking to being merely weird was frankly a public service to the world at large.)

Anyway, Kanaya was tied to a chair in the middle of the room, her sword and other useful gear stacked by the back wall. She was surrounded by Alternian soldiers, and an elf woman in the uniform of one of Alternia’s military wizards stood off to the side. Said woman was probably the muscle of this operation, but she was looking a little drained. Rose looked everything over, carefully not noticing that Kanaya had worked a nail free from the chair and was picking at her bonds.

The seadweller officer gestured dramatically in Kanaya’s direction.

“This creature possesses highly valuable knowledge about the criminals who attempted to assassinate our empress recently, but she refuses to divulge it, and my colleague's magic has proven entirely inadequate to the task.”

“Fuck you, Pompel.” said colleague snarled wearily.

“In any case, if you can pry the information from her head, you will be rewarded.”

Rose stepped up to Kanaya, who looked at her curiously. Apparently she had noticed Rose not noticing her. Pompel impatiently stepped up as well.

“Well?” he snapped. “Can you do it?”

“Not to worry,” said Rose, smiling unpleasantly and clapping a hand on his shoulder. “I have just the spell.” There was a brief pause as Rose gathered herself, and then-

“Inflict Critical Wounds.”

Pompel’s smoking corpse collapsed like a pile of damp seaweed. As the startled soldiers readied their weapons, Rose called on the Dark Tapestry, surrounding herself in a corona of writhing, inky shadow. The soldiers attacked, but their weapons sunk uselessly into the darkness; the wizard cast a fireball that actually hurt somewhat but also killed several of her own men and burned away the ropes binding Kanaya, who darted over to grab her sword and set about hacking up the rest of the soldiers. Rose pitched in with a Shard of Chaos. The wizard assessed the situation and took a swan dive out the nearest window.

The last soldier fell, and Kanaya stopped to catch her breath before hurriedly gathering up her things. Rose walked over and gently poked her in the arm.

“Cure Critical Wounds.” Kanaya’s various burns and scrapes healed up instantly, and she seemed to move a little more easily.

“Thank you.” she said. “Though I am afraid that you may not realize precisely what you have gotten yourself into.”

“Nonsense, Miss Kanaya, I know precisely what I’m getting into.”

There was a pause as Kanaya looked thoughtful for a moment.

“I do not believe that we have met before.” she said. “I feel as though I most certainly would have remembered you.”

“Indeed we have not, but your friend gave me a good description. My name is Rose Lalonde, and it’s a bit of a story, but it appears that we’re going to be comrades in arms for a while.”

“Oh. Well. That’s good.”

“Quite. Let me signal my comrades, then we can be off.”

“If it’s at all possible, could we pop a few streets over first? There are some things that it would be useful for me to retrieve.”

“Certainly.” Rose reached up to the violet gem she wore in her left ear and sent the mental signal to Jade and Dave, before following Kanaya down the stairs. There was no sign of the wizard who had absconded a moment ago except for some broken glass and a few specks of blood. The two of them ducked through an alley and walked a few blocks over to a flat guarded by two disinterested-looking soldiers, who swiftly fell under Kanaya’s blade and Rose’s Searing Light, respectively. The two of them also dispatched the startled police inspector who popped his head out the front door at the commotion and the guard out back who had been watching a very curious animal that had been hobbled and muzzled. After a moment’s thought, Rose recognized it as a Decapoqus, or an ocean horse in more common parlance; a four-legged beast shaped roughly like a horse, but with gills, slimy skin brightly colored like a tropical fish, pieces of carapace all over it, a longer, snaky neck and sharp teeth, and a broad, muscular, finned tail. The creature was amphibious, and capable of both swimming and galloping at a good pace; seadwellers bred them for use as mounts. This one seemed to be familiar with Kanaya, nickering softly as she untied it.

After releasing the animal, Kanaya went back inside and knocked open a section of wall that had looked indistinguishable from the rest, pulling out a bundle of papers which she tucked into her pack. She then retrieved a sewing kit from the bedside table and nodded at Rose.

“That should be everything.”

“Excellent. I assume that this creature is coming with us?”

“If there’s room in whatever vehicle we’ll be using, yes.”

“I’ll actually be teleporting us, so it’s no trouble.”

Kanaya nodded assent, before peering out the door and wincing.

“We seem to have a little problem here.”

Rose looked out to see the wizard from earlier, who had apparently ran off to gather every Alternian soldier she could find; several squads were gathered at the end of the street, including a number of archers, a cleric, and a seadweller officer in fancy armor who looked rather more intimidating than the late Pompel.

“It looks like we’ll have to hold them off for a minute.” said Rose. Kanaya readied her blade with a determined expression.

This is where it would have been nice to have some ninth-level spells available, but she had used up most of them teleporting, and had to save the last one for their escape. Having Interplanetary Teleport(which also functioned on smaller scales) as one’s only transportation spell was quite irritating, though she supposed it beat not being able to teleport at all. Still, she wasn’t exactly helpless.

“Black Tentacles.”

A roiling mass of tentacles burst out of the street and snatched at their foes, catching soldiers in a crushing grip. The wizard slipped away- she probably had a Freedom of Movement spell on- and the fancy-armored captain hacked her way through with a sword and led the other soldiers that had dodged charging towards them. Kanaya stepped in front of Rose and intercepted the front-runners with a vicious cleaving stroke; the ocean horse also stepped in to bite out a soldier’s throat. The enemy archers in the back let out a volley; though they had little luck piercing Rose’s shadowy armor, Kanaya took a few hits. The enemy wizard fired a quintet of Magic Missiles that blew through Rose’s protection and blasted into her torso. Kanaya was fighting the enemy captain now, the two of them locked in a dazzlingly fast swordfight that seemed to be fairly evenly matched, with both of them bleeding from several wounds. Across the way, the enemy cleric had pulled himself free of the tentacles and was readying a spell while the archers readied another volley. Things were looking a little rough, but surely any second now…

There was a crack of rifle fire, and four of the archers fell; Dave melted out of the shadows behind the enemy cleric and impaled him; Bec bounded over to imbed his teeth in the seadweller captain’s elbow. She staggered back trying to shake him off, and Rose took the opportunity to blast her with an Umbral Strike that dropped her dead on the ground. Kanaya, Bec, and the horse took care of the last few soldiers in melee range while Dave blurred through the enemy and the mass of tentacles with magic-enhanced speed. Another volley from Jade finished off the cleric and downed a few more archers, and then they were all in arm’s length. Everyone clustered together to get a hand on Rose, and as Dave batted a few stray arrows away, Rose reached out to the feeling of deep space and cast her spell.

“Interplanetary Teleport.”

There was a rush of shadow and cold, and with a little pop of displaced air, they were gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't find a good creature to serve as Fef's cavalier mount, so I made one up.


	6. Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a short one, but it's a double update so whatever.

Feferi was considering drinking some of the coffee that Karkat had brewed, eye-wateringly strong though it was, just to try and focus, when there was another rush of cold air and shadow, and Jade and her friends returned, bringing with them Kanaya and-

“Sepida!” The ocean horse eagerly rushed over to her mistress, knocking over an end table. Feferi happily ran her fingers over the crest the creature had in place of a mane. She hadn’t expected to see her again after their hasty flight.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have brought the horse inside.” mused Rose as she tended to Kanaya’s injuries. 

“Kanaya, you didn’t put yourself in danger just to get her, did you?” asked Feferi. She was rather fond of her mount, of course, but she could never ask anyone to risk their life just for that.

“No, actually, she rather wound up saving me. After I was unable to embark on Vriska’s ship- I surmise that they were forced to leave early to avoid being trapped- I found myself cutting through the royal stables, where Sepida recognized me and allowed me to ride her away. I had to go the wrong way to avoid pursuit, which is how I wound up over in Revampa.”

“Well I’m just glad you’re safe! Jade, Rose, Dave, thank you so much!”

“It was my pleasure,” Rose said with a smile. 

“Yeah, it’s no big deal.” Jade agreed.

Karkat pulled himself out of the seat where he had been curled up in a ball of stress ever since they’d gotten Kanaya’s message.

“I’m glad you’re safe.” he said. “I would really fucking hate to lose you, and when we couldn’t get you before we left and it turned out you weren’t with Vriska…” He trailed off, uncertain.

Kanaya smiled warmly and pulled Karkat in for a hug.

“I was worried too. Do not worry, I have no intention of depriving you of a friend anytime soon.”

There was a moment of peace, broken up only by a little sniffling.

“Are you crying?” asked Kanaya, fondly bemused.

“No.” said Karkat, crying.

She ruffled his hair a bit before releasing him.

“Speaking of Vriska, did John catch up to her?” asked Feferi.

“”Let me check.” Jade fiddled with the gem on her bracelet.

“Yep! They’re okay and they’ll be here in about a day.”

Feferi felt a burst of surprised joy fill her heart. Everyone had made it out! It was almost a miracle- no, it was a miracle.

“Seriously,” she said, turning to Jade with the hint of a tear forming in her eye, “we can’t thank you enough.”

Jade smiled back at her like the sun.

“You’ll never catch me not helping people who come to me needing help.”

“Hell yeah,” Dave chimed in. “Sweet heroism, that’s us.”

Kanaya had pulled another bundle of papers out of her pack.

“I managed to save our intelligence on imperial defensive works and our collection of blackmail material against imperial officials as well.”

Karkat eagerly snatched the bundle of papers out of her hands and leafed through them rapidly.

“Ha! Let’s see if anyone will have the balls to try and inspect our cargoes now! This makes things way easier for supply deliveries. We should start sending messages as soon as Vriska gets here with the carrier birds.”

“I can prepare some Animal Messenger spells to help, too.” said Jade.

Feferi nodded. 

“Once Vriska confirms that she can set up supply deliveries, we’ll start mustering our forces here. House Arraia has agreed to send its undeclared forces to us once an actual conflict starts, and I’ve got a network of ambitious minor nobles who are willing to throw in with us for the glory or the chance at power. Karkat and Vriska both know a bunch of mercenary types, and Aradia has an in with the religiously-motivated resistance groups. Terezi has people in the legal system and the Legislacerators, Kanaya knows some humanitarian groups, and Tavros can talk to the druids and natural types. Between all that, we can get something of a fleet going.”

Jade had been counting on her fingers as Feferi went.

“We have a few more adventurer friends, and we’re on good terms with some outsiders, though they’re often too busy to step in for mortal stuff.”

Karkat was leafing through more paperwork.

“If you know anything special about these waters, we could use that to try and plan ambushes.” he mused.

“Ooh, yes, I’ve got some charts.”

Feferi yawned hugely, cutting off the conversation.

“Geez, you guys must all be tired,” said Jade. “Why don’t you all get some sleep and we can start fresh tomorrow morning. Feferi, I’ll put your horse outside. Does she need some kind of feed?”

“Just let her in the ocean, she’ll graze.” Feferi was awfully tired. She probably did need sleep.

“I have enough caffeine in me to give a dire mammoth the jitters,” said Karkat, hands shaking, “but there’s stuff I need to do anyhow. See you guys in the morning.”

“We’ll wake you if anything of import happens,” said Rose.

Sleep sounded really good right now. As Jade led Sepida towards the stairs(thank goodness said stairs were rather broad), Feferi leaned up against the side of an armchair and let the sound of Karkat’s scritching pen lull her to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sepiida is the taxonomic order that cuttlefish are a part of, I just took out an i to make it easier.


	7. First Encounter

The next morning, Feferi awoke feeling refreshed and hopeful. Karkat had finally passed out at the kitchen table at some point, but not before completing a full requisition list of supplies, preliminary estimates of friendly and enemy forces and equipment, and a list of locations for potential engagements. Everyone else was awake, though; Nepeta was pacing impatiently outside watching the sea, Kanaya was sewing up the tears in her clothes from the previous day’s misadventures while comparing tastes in cheap novels with Rose, Sollux was leafing through a spellbook, Aradia was crunching on an apple, and Tavros was getting fitted into a new wheelchair by Jade.

“And it’s got a levitate function” she was explaining, “so it can go up stairs or over rough terrain without falling over, you actually can’t really fall over in this unless someone does it on purpose.”

“It’s, ah, really comfortable too,” said Tavros. “Way better than the ones they make in Alternia. You said this should stick with me when I use Wild Shape?”

“Yeah, it’s attuned to count as part of your body and not as equipment.”

“That’s, uh, awesome. Thank you.”

“No problem.” Jade finished checking over the wheel bolts and stood up. “I always keep some things like this around just in case. Oh, good morning, Feferi. Breakfast’s on the table.”

“Morning.” Feferi wolfed down a plate of fish, then went outside to see Sepida, who was a lot more lively after romping in the water for a while.

“How are you doing?” she asked Nepeta, who was still pacing.

“I’m fine, I just can’t wait to see the others. They should be here soon!”

“Alright. I think I’ll wait here with you.” Feferi sat with Sepida, brushing away tangles and scraping gunk off her scales. They waited together for a little while, until Nepeta spotted something on the horizon.

“Look! Is that them?”

Feferi squinted at the speck that was approaching the island. Right shade of blue, right shape, yep, that was the Arachne. Nepeta ran down to the beach where the ship was headed, while Feferi followed at a more sedate pace. The two of them both reached the shore just as the ship was dropping anchor.

“Equius!” Nepeta sprinted up and took a flying leap over the ship’s rail to bowl Equius over with a tackle hug.

“Yes, it is quite good to see you as well, Nepeta.”

“Never mind the happy reunions,” snapped Vriska. “We’ve got a problem.”

She gestured irritably back out to sea, and Feferi saw them; a group of around fifteen Alternian navy ships.

“We got away from the ones chasing us,” Vriska groused. “But then these assholes were just hanging around north of this island for some reason.”

“It must be the rest of Commodore Mariss’ task force that was chasing us. I’ll run and get the others.”

“Don’t worry, John called ahead.” said Jade, leading the others down to the beach and tossing Feferi her trident.

“I count sixteen ships,” John called from where he was hovering above the Arachne’s crow’s nest.

Aradia grinned wickedly as she rose into the air. “Let’s see how they do without the element of surprise and us being all tired and having to try and keep a ship intact.”

“Indeed.” said Rose. “It’s been a while since I properly cut loose on anyone. This should be fun.”

“Any protips, people?” Jade asked.

“These are all Neptune-class frigates, so they can’t defend against aerial attacks for shit unless they’ve got a spellcaster.” said Vriska.

“There’s a weak spot on the keel about two-fifths of the way back from the bow, too.” Feferi added as she mounted her horse.

“Right.” Jade thought for a moment. “John, Rose, can you drive them closer to shore so the rest of us can engage them properly?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll help with that.” said Aradia, cheerfully.

“Right. Everyone else, get ready.”

Everyone acknowledged her, then readied their weapons. Vriska had anchored the Arachne so her broadside faced out towards the incoming vessels, and the crew was rushing about to load the cannons. The casters started with their defensive spells while the rest of them checked their gear.

“Glad I didn’t prepare all those Animal Messenger spells yet this morning,” muttered Jade. “That would have been a pain to try and fight with.”

Feferi was glad that she’d slept in her armor, and that Jade had brought her weapon. She still didn’t have a banner, though; she’d have to fix that soon. She supposed she ought to get a new spell in her spell-storing trident too. Actually, now that she thought of it, she had a good idea for that.

“Aradia,” she called, holding up the trident. “Can I get a Shatter in here?”

“Sure.” Aradia floated over to cast the spell, before soaring up and towards the enemy, John following in her wake.

Rose stretched and cracked her knuckles, then closed her eyes. There was a moment’s pause, then shadow flowed over her, pouring outwards and taking form until a huge black dragon stood before them. Rose roared mightily, then took flight in a massive rush of wind.

“Oh, my.” said Kanaya, impressed.

Rose caught up quickly with John and Aradia, then the three of them fell on the advancing ships and the battle was joined.

Aradia opened up with a Circle of Death that laid out a significant portion of the crew on one ship, then followed up by animating the corpses into zombies, throwing the unfortunate vessel into a brutal fight.

John smacked a few archers out of a ship’s crow’s nest, then dropped to the deck to hammer down the masts, smashing every low-level soldier that came within arm’s reach.

Rose simply dove at a ship in her dragon form, laying down a line of acid from stem to stern while arrows plinked uselessly off of her scales and a bolt of lightning failed to do any real damage. 

As the three fliers circled around, the rest of the ships accelerated towards shore, casters using wind spells to hasten their sail. The Arachne’s cannons boomed out at them as they came, scoring a few hits; the bow chasers on the enemy vessels returned fire, knocking a few bits out of the Arachne. Rose bathed another ship in acid, while Aradia shredded part of the crew on another with a spray of diamond shards, and John swept down to smash the rudder on a third.

A few more moments passed, and then the enemy ships were close enough to engage.

“Let’s do this shit,” called Dave before darting across the surface of the water to board the nearest enemy vessel. Feferi followed suit, spurring Sepida into a charge and diving underwater towards another ship. The two of them swam over to the keel’s weak spot, and Feferi hacked at it viciously with her trident, unleashing the Shatter spell that Aradia had given her a moment ago. There was a loud crack, and the keel was sundered, letting in a torrent of water that Feferi knew would sink the ship in mere moments. As Feferi moved to find another target, there was a splash next to her as a Subjugglator dove into the water. Yesterday, a Subjugglator had been a virtually impossible foe for for her. Of course, yesterday she’d been exhausted, without a mount, and on land. Feferi flourished her trident in a challenge and charged in. She and Sepida swam circles around the enemy, lashing out with trident and teeth; before long, the Subjugglator was bleeding from a dozen wounds, while Feferi had only taken a glancing blow.

More splashes sounded around her, as more of the enemy crewmen entered the water; some few were seadwellers looking to get into their element, while the others mostly seemed to be fleeing stricken ships or aerial attack. Feferi would have to be careful not to be surrounded, but- wait, what was that? Shapes were moving in the water below and coming up fast. Feferi looked more carefully, then laughed delightedly as she realized what they were.

Tavros had called up the sharks.

The water swiftly became a churning, bloodsoaked melee; the seadwellers could hold their own, but the rest of them were getting ripped to shreds. The Subjugglator that Feferi had been fighting had been bitten a dozen times, and was clearly struggling to stay afloat. Feferi swam back over and put him out of his misery with a single sharp blow, then surfaced to check on the rest of the battle.

Most of the enemy ships had been accounted for. Rose had blasted another ship in acid, bringing her total up to three, and as Feferi watched, she changed shape again in midair, turning into a black-tinged water elemental and splashing down into the sea, catching another ship in a swirling vortex. John, Vriska, and Terezi had boarded Commodore Mariss’ flagship; Vriska had the commodore backed up against the stern rail with a flurry of sabre blows, while Terezi kept the rest of the crew off her back and John hammered down a Subjugglator. Karkat, Nepeta, and Equius had joined Dave, and between the four of them, the enemy ship was almost completely cleared. Sollux and Eridan’s combined evocations had proved too much for another ship’s casters to defend against; the unfortunate vessel was a burning hulk. The ship whose rudder John had smashed had been an easy target for the Arachne and was sinking fast, holed around the waterline in four places. Aradia’s duel with another ship’s caster was cut short when Jade shot the enemy wizard in the head. Aradia immediately took advantage, telekinetically ripping a heavy cannon from its carriage and smashing it through the weak spot on the keel. Jade turned her attention to the Subjugglator that had washed ashore and was having a rage-off with Gamzee, downing it in a few shots.

Feferi was starting to wonder if there was anything left for her to bother doing, when she noticed an enemy ship that had gotten close to shore and disgorged its crew in a desperate effort to get to the riflewoman that had been inflicting such devastation on their officers and casters. Kanaya and Becquerel were holding them off, but there were a lot of them, and they weren’t really watching their backs. Feferi swam over, boarded the ship without them noticing, then tore into them from the rear, laying about with her trident. Soon the three of them had cleared this ship too.

Feferi turned to look at the rest of the battle. Rose had finished crushing the enemy ship in her vortex, and had resumed humanoid form, hovering above the battlefield on shadowy wings and summoning a few chaotic Dire Bears on the ship that had been the victim of Aradia’s diamond shards earlier, then helping her summons with a few well-placed spells. Vriska triumphantly ran Commodore Mariss through with her sabre, while John thwacked the last few enemy sailors over the side, where they were promptly set upon by sharks, Tavros’ summoned creatures having been supplemented by a horde of mundane ones drawn to the blood and noise. Aradia had cleared another ship of life with one powerful necromantic spell after another, and the last ship, towards the rear, had very wisely turned tail and run.

The last few enemy stragglers were cleared away, and Feferi took stock of the battlefield, a little shell-shocked. You always heard about how high-level adventurers could decide a battle in minutes when unopposed, but seeing it up close like this was something else. An entire task force, annihilated in the time it took to cook a nice breakfast. Half of them had been taken down by just Rose and Aradia. They’d even captured five ships more or less intact, and that one that John had knocked the masts off of could probably be repaired too.

As they gathered back on the beach, Vriska spoke for everyone.

“Hell fucking yeah!”

“Wait till the news of this one gets around, we’ll get so many recruits out of this.” Karkat was pacing excitedly.

“Mass Cure Critical Wounds.” Rose’s healing spell washed over them all, erasing any injuries they had sustained.

“Don’t get too excited,” Terezi cautioned. “These guys clearly weren’t ready to face off with adventurers; it won’t be so easy next time.”

“Don’t be a spoilsport, Terezi, we kicked their fuckin asses.” Vriska had one arm thrown around John’s shoulders and the other over Terezi’s and was so excited that she almost seemed to have trouble standing up straight.

“This was a great victory,” Feferi spoke up, “but it’s only a start. Alternia’s got a lot more to throw at us. But still, celebrate today, and remember what we’re capable of when we work together, and remember what you accomplished today when some highblood asshole tries to tell you that the ‘lesser races’ can’t win fights!”

Her words were met with a ragged cheer, and as she looked out at the devastation they’d inflicted, and the Alternian colors burning merrily atop ruined vessels, she thought to herself:

We might just actually win this one.


	8. Sparring

The next few days saw a flurry of activity on Jade’s island that had Karkat downing coffee by the liter and wishing he could find a way to do without sleep entirely. Swarms of messenger animals and other communication magic had been going back and forth constantly, and ships had started arriving two days after their victory over the Alternian task force. 

Vriska had marshalled her crew into slapping together some docks on the island’s west shore before sitting down to write a massive pile of shouty missives that had translated a brief while later into supply ships; sleek, dark-colored vessels laden with weapons, armor, and magical supplies, that docked furtively at odd hours and took payment in piles of unmarked gold, silver, and gems.

Karkat had assembled his own pile of mostly normal commercial trade orders, combined with a few threatening letters, and soon perfectly normal trade ships filled with less warlike supplies such as food and medicine were arriving regularly. Any discrepancies that the Alternian authorities might have noticed in, say, travel times, or ships seeming to sail into waters designated as enemy territory, were neatly covered up by customs officials with blackmail threats hanging over their heads.

People were arriving, too. A few hundred of the most trustworthy mercenaries Vriska could find(gosh, what an encouraging phrase _that_ was) had showed up in half a dozen motley warships. Random dissatisfied nobility of varying motivations and levels of douchebaggery that Feferi was acquainted with for one reason or another trickled in, often with highly useful reserves of money, magic, or personal ships. A group of Legislacerators who had very strong feelings about some legal bullshit that Terezi had talked them into about how the Alternian regime was legally invalid showed up with a judicial cruiser. Random volunteers, sent along from the various dissident groups that they knew, especially the ones Aradia was connected with, were showing up in dribs and drabs as word of mouth got around. They came in all sorts of ways, from little groups in barely seaworthy rowboats to massive crowds on overstuffed transport ships. On one memorable occasion they even got a parcel of fed-up dockworkers who had hijacked a half-finished Triton-class cruiser and sailed off to join the resistance they had heard about, and who had nearly gotten sunk by jumpy mercs before someone had noticed the lack of Alternian colors. Soon they had accumulated enough people to crew all of their captured ships and then some, and more were coming.

Housing and food for everyone had been a little bumpy at first, before the supply shipments Karkat had arranged started showing up, but they had managed. Jade had given them the food supplies she had in reserve, and there was no shortage of good foraging on the island. Plus, Feferi had led a bunch of the seadwellers out on a hunting expedition and come back with a couple of whales, which had also been rather helpful. Karkat had made sure to procure plenty of tents(what anyone could possibly need five thousand tents for was another question that Alternian customs officials were blackmailed into not asking), and between that, the ships, and some lean-tos and shacks that had been thrown together, housing went alright. Some of the ex-nobility types had complained at first, but Feferi had appealed to the spirit of adventure and rough living, and that had placated a lot of them; the remainder were satisfied with some new buildings that weren’t actually any nicer than the others but had been liberally splattered with gold paint.

Their weapons were improving, too. In addition to the shipments arranged by Vriska, Jade had dug into her tower’s enormous storerooms to hand out piles of weapons, including a decent-sized cache of muskets that they were using to train up some of the less experienced combatants into a battalion of musketeers. There were also a few cannons and mortars, which had been set up to guard the shoreline, and enough parts and equipment to set up a small foundry. Jade had drafted some of the casters into helping her get huge quantities of iron and steel, and was churning out finished pieces at an astonishing rate- Karkat was pretty sure that her equipment had some kind of magic attached to it. In any case, their island soon found itself in possession of a very respectable set of defensive guns, and their ships were being armed at a pretty good pace too. The Neptune-class frigates that they had captured in their last engagement had been fitted with swivel guns that could cover the sky and had their keels reinforced, thus countering their main weaknesses.

But the most impressive refitting was being done with the Arachne. The ship was Vriska’s baby, and was consequently pretty well-outfitted to start with; it had armor and magical protections of a level normally reserved for the most powerful ships of the line, and Karkat could have taken up firework juggling as a hobby and still been able to count the ships that could match its speed on his fingers. As such, Vriska had been reluctant to let Jade make any modifications to the ship, until Jade had demonstrated the special cannon that she had designed by hitting a few targets with explosive shells from two thousand yards, at which point Vriska had let her do whatever she wanted. The special cannon was the centerpiece- it was mounted on a swivel at the bow that let it aim in any direction, including up, and was specially rigged to be loaded from the rear much more quickly than a regular cannon, with a wide variety of shells. And not only were its shells more powerful, its effective range was half again that of any of the standard artillery pieces used by the Alternian navy. Pity it required too many special materials to be mass-produced. After that, the armor improved with special extraplanar materials, the special damage-resistant sailcloth, and the tube for firing self-propelled torpedoes almost seemed like afterthoughts. 

Overall, their little resistance group was starting to resemble a real army, albeit one with a rather shaky chain of command. Feferi was the closest thing they had to a consensus leader, through a combination of her personal charisma and energy, people who hadn’t quite shaken off the Alternian caste system, and the fact the various subgroup leaders all liked her to at least some degree. Of course, Feferi refused to suggest any major decisions without consulting, at a minimum, Karkat, Aradia, and Terezi, so action still tended to be a little delayed. But in terms of size, equipment, and general organization, they had an honest-to-gods military going.

And who got to be in charge of organizing and inventorying all of the supplies as they came in, making sure messages and intelligence got to where they were supposed to be going, fielding complaints from people who wanted more stuff, scheduling training and meal times and watches and work assignments, and collating reports upon reports, not to mention the badgering it took just to get some people to file them? Karkat fucking Vantas, that was who.

Karkat was up to his ears in paperwork, and it was pretty much all on him. Terezi and Feferi both had their hands full; Terezi had somehow wound up in charge of adjudicating all of the disputes between the various parties in camp, and insisted on assigning Legislacerators to argue for each position like they were in a proper law court, while Feferi was busy with diplomacy and trying to get people to stop putting so much stock in the caste system. Among other things, this involved whipping most of their ‘higher’ caste people in sparring matches, then going out and losing sparring matches to Kanaya, Terezi, and John in front of everyone(though never badly enough to look bad; no sense having anyone lose confidence in her). None of the new arrivals had any real administrative experience of the kind they needed; some of the sorry bastards couldn’t even read. Therefore, until some of them had been trained up a bit, Karkat was very busy.

On top of all that, he needed to find time to have a few sparring matches of his own. Back when they had boarded the enemy ship together, Karkat had taken down a few foes, but had also had quite a bit of trouble compared to his comrades, and at one point, Nepeta had had to step in front of a blow meant for him. It had been a fairly minor injury, and she had waved it off like it was nothing when he had asked about it, but it was still galling. So, combat practice was necessary.

Unfortunately, combat practice was going to require some assistance. Straw dummies weren’t really cutting it, and though going out into the woods and hacking up everything in sight while yelling incoherently was excellent stress relief, it didn’t really accomplish anything, except for making tinder-gathering the next day a little easier and spraining his wrist.

And so, one day, after filling out all the invoices, leaving Feferi a note asking her to make sure that the goddamn highbloods actually took their shifts on watch, and pinning a note written in very large and angry letters to Eridan’s door telling him to finish up the list of spell components they needed already, Karkat went out looking for a sparring partner. Ideally Terezi, who would kick his ass up and down the ring, but in a good-humored sort of way, and with helpful advice attached.

Alas, Terezi was busy trying to figure out who had stolen the accordion someone kept practicing badly with in the evenings and burned it, and whether the thief should be punished or given a medal. Most everyone else was busy too, and Karkat had almost resigned himself to failure when he spotted Dave Strider leaning up against a wall, humming under his breath and apparently trying to compose a song. 

Karkat hadn’t had time to interact with Dave much over the last few days(or anyone, really). He’d seen the guy wandering through camp, talking to people, sometimes apparently trying to cheer them up. The main things Karkat had noticed about him were that he was willing to go off on a bizarre tangent of thoughts on any given subject at the drop of a hat, and that he had a sort of enigmatic air about him that he never entirely dropped. Of course, what Karkat was primarily noticing about him right now was that he didn’t appear to be doing anything important, and Karkat needed a sparring partner. And so-

“Hey, Strider!”

Dave glanced up at him briefly.

“Something I can do for you, Shouty?”

“You can help me practice with these.” said Karkat, brandishing his sickles.

Dave looked at him doubtfully. Probably. He could be very hard to read with those damn glasses.

“You sure, man? There’s lots of people practicing down on the training fields.”

“I need to get better, and beating up on a bunch of people who are still grasping the concept of which end of the spear is the kill-y one isn’t going to help much, is it?”

“Is there nobody else around?”

“I already fucking looked everywhere, and no, there isn’t. What’s the matter, you can’t possibly be scared of losing to me.”

Dave chuckled a little at that.

“Alright, but let’s use the practice blades. Keep it casual.”

Gods above, was Karkat so bad that he couldn’t be trusted with a live blade? He really needed the practice, huh?

After they dug out the carefully weighted wooden sickles and longsword from Jade’s collection of mock weapons(was there anything Jade didn’t have lying around in a storeroom somewhere?), the two of them took up their stances on opposite ends of a clearing in the forest. Karkat had been too preoccupied with not dying to get a good look at Dave’s skills in the last fight, but from what he had seen he had gotten a general impression of fastness. Well, he was going to find out some more real soon. No sense just standing around staring at each other. Karkat darted across the clearing and lunged at Dave.

What followed was an incredibly frustrating five minutes in which Karkat felt like nothing so much as a little brother being held at bay by a hand in his face, arms flailing in useless anger. There was just no getting past the superior reach of Dave’s weapon. And it wasn’t like Karkat didn’t know any tricks for dealing with longer weapons; he’d have been awfully dumb to make sickles his specialty without learning a few. It was just that none of them worked on Dave. He didn’t let Karkat trap his weapon or push it towards the ground, he was way too fast to try and flank, he was too careful for Karkat to try and strike at his arm, he just spun with the hook-and-spin trick, and he was too fast for the bait-a-thrust-and-charge-into-him-while-parrying trick to work. No matter what Karkat tried, Dave just picked off every blow like a tennis player returning serve, occasionally deigning to land a counterstrike that was more humiliating than painful.

“Grrraaaaggggghhhhh!” Frustrated noises were about all Karkat had left in him at this point.

“Dude, you should try fighting more defensively. Make me come to you instead of trying to rush me and just running into my sword.”

So Dave handed out advice too. Well, Karkat wasn’t gonna be so dumb as to not take it. He disengaged and took a few steps back, waiting for Dave to attack.

But Dave just hung back, twirling his practice sword and looking Karkat over.

“So what brought this on, Karkat?”

“Huh?”

“Why are you all worried about getting better with blades when you’ve got all this other stuff going on? It’s not like you’re that bad with them.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Karkat goggled at him. “You’ve been awake for the last five minutes and not zoned out like some kind of fucking zen sword guy while I flailed at you like a toddler trying to beat up a dire bear, right?”

“Yeah, but I’m like, really fucking good. It’s not like you’re some baby who can’t fight at all, and I know you’ve got a lot of shit on your plate. Why not take a little time to rest when you’ve got a minute, instead of trying to get kicked around by someone who’s more combat focused than you?”

“Will you shut up and fight me already!?”

Dave shrugged and advanced, fake sword whirling in rapid curving patterns. He had been right, as it turned out; fighting defensively was much easier. Karkat was taking fewer hits, and Dave left more openings to strike back at him while he was attacking. Karkat even managed to score a feather-light graze along Dave’s ribcage at one point. Of course, Dave was still kicking his ass, but it didn’t feel quite so pathetic as before.

“Seriously though, you seem really intense about this. What’s the reason?” Dave was apparently determined to continue their conversation. You’d think he’d be out of breath but _no_ .

“Why do you care so much, Strider?” Karkat shot back, teeth gritted, while fending off a particularly tricky combo. “Do you analyze the fucking philosophical motivations of everyone you fight or am I special?”

Karkat stepped back from a strike, then as Dave’s sword came down, smashed down on the blade with both sickles as hard as he could, hoping to make him drop it. But Dave had too strong of a grip on it, and the two of them wound up locked in an awkward blade clash instead.

“Look man,” said Dave, “I’ve known some people who were real obsessive about being strong and never screwing up and being perfect and stuff, and it never ended well for them. Being stronger is nice and all, but it’s not worth messing yourself up over, you know?”

Dave broke their blade lock with a heavy shove, sending Karkat tumbling backwards and landing on his ass in a pile of leaves, dropping his sickles.

“I don’t mind sparring with you or anything, but if you’re just gonna mess yourself up trying to be a super-fighter or whatever, then I don’t want to be a party to-”

“I just don’t want people to get hurt because I wasn’t good enough, alright!” 

A silence fell over the clearing.

“Oh.” said Dave, after a moment. “That I get, man.” He extended a hand to help Karkat up. “But you know, that can be tricky.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Karkat as Dave pulled him to his feet.

“I mean, you’re gonna be going into a fucking war, adventuring against some of the biggest, baddest stuff that Alternia’s gonna throw at us. Nobody’s that good.”

“Then what the hell am I supposed to do?” Karkat snapped back at him.

“Sometimes,” Dave paused a moment to gather his thoughts. “Sometimes, the best thing you can do for people is to be there to help patch them up when they get hurt. You’ve got a little bard in you, right?”

“Yeah.” So Dave had noticed his pitiful efforts at buffing up his teammates during the fight.

“Yeah, so maybe you might wanna focus on that some. You can’t solve all of your friends’ problems by hitting things, you know. Besides, I can’t help but notice your team is a little short on healers right now.”

Dave had that right, anyways. Especially when they wound up splitting up. But still…

“Not really sure how I’m supposed to do that. I don’t know shit about bard stuff, and the only other bard I know is Vriska, and she’s, well-”

“Vriska.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve got some sick bard skills myself, man.” said Dave. “I can help you out with that, too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Not today though. You look like a raccoon that got rolled down a hill in a barrel and crashed into a pile of leaves dipped in ink and coffee. Get some sleep, dude. I’ll catch up with you later.”

Dave wandered away, picking up Karkat’s discarded weapons as he went. Karkat was a little annoyed, but, then again, he was kind of tired, especially after all that exertion. He turned on his heel and walked away, eyes peeled for the nearest bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Military tech in this verse is more advanced for naval warfare than for ground fighting, since the relative efficacy of using a magic gun versus a magic sword against dragons and high-level adventurers and so on is about the same, but the efficacy of using cannon against ships is a lot more than the efficacy of using ballistas and shit. And Jade, between her family legacy, her extra-planar adventures, and her own genius, has the most advanced technology on the material plane. Handy, that.


	9. Striking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Added first ship tag. There'll be more, I just don't like adding them until there's at least a little bit of the actual ship in the fic.

Dave Strider, currently composing a song and trying to think of words that rhymed with ‘pernicious’, paused for a moment in the main thoroughfare of their makeshift military camp to enjoy the feel of a nice sunbeam. It was another busy day on Jade’s island(not that there was any other kind of day around here lately), and Dave was surrounded by people doing all sorts of things: moving stuff, moving other different stuff, running around in groups, making stuff, and so on. Dave wasn’t very well versed in military stuff, but presumably most of the things that everyone was doing were important. Not feeling particularly inspired by anything around him, Dave wandered on, wondering if ‘sinister’ would be easier to rhyme with.

“Good morning, Dave.” Rose waved at him as she walked by.

“Hey.” Dave fell into step with her. “Sup?”

“Oh, just going to the war council we’re having today.”

The war council, which had met a few times already, consisted of everyone who led some kind of group or was the main expert in something important. Rose was on it representing their magical expertise, since she was the most powerful caster they had by a fair margin, though Aradia was no slouch either.

“What’s on the agenda today, anyhow?” Dave asked.

“We’re deciding whether or not we’re ready to start taking offensive military actions against Alternia, and if so, what kind they’ll be.”

“Cool. I volunteer for any sneaky shit.”

“Not to worry, I was already going to volunteer you for it regardless.” Rose smirked a little.

“Awesome.”

“And what might you be doing today, Dave?” Rose asked.

“I dunno, wandering around. Writing songs. Maybe helping Karkat with some bard stuff.”

“Oh?” Rose perked up at that. “Have you finally found a protégé? Someone with whom to share your unique artistic ideas and train into another provider of ludicrous rambles and diseased meters?”

“Maybe? He was looking to spar with me yesterday, and he was talking about wanting to be good enough to help and shit. I said he should maybe focus on his bard stuff and he seemed to take it to heart.”

“Well, that’s good.” said Rose. “We could certainly use a few more healers around here.”

“I know, right? Especially when you decide to fly up and play shapeshifty murder witch the whole fight.”

“When one is an emissary of the Horrorterrors and imbued with the hideous powers of the Dark Tapestry,” Rose explained patiently, “one should not spend a battle sitting in the back lines nursemaiding. Besides, it’s not like any of you were in any real danger in that last conflict.”

“True, but it can be kinda hard to get healing out of you sometimes.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we’re getting more healers then, isn’t it?”

“Speaking of healers,” Dave asked, “are Dirk and Roxy and the rest of them getting here soon?”

“Yes, within a day or two, I talked to them a little while ago.”

“Oh, cool.” It would be nice to see them all again. It would also be nice to have them from a tactical perspective, especially Jane’s healing skills and Roxy’s stealth and punching skills.

“Indeed. Our collection of allies grows rapidly. We may have to build an addition on the island to hold them all.”

“How the fuck do you build an addition to a fucking island, Rose?”

“Oh, there are several ways. For starters…” Rose trailed off suddenly, frozen mid-step, gaze fixed on something off to the side.

Dave turned to see what she was looking at, and was treated to an interesting scene. A seadweller in fancy clothes and a halfling in rather shabbier ones were having a very intense argument, apparently over the disposition of some cooking supplies from the snatches of words that Dave could catch. The halfling was managing to cow the seadweller a bit, despite being more than three feet shorter than him.

In the middle of the two was Karkat, whose approach to stopping the yelling was to yell even louder in order to make the other yelling feel inadequate and go away. He had apparently gotten some sleep since Dave saw him last; his condition had been upgraded from ‘rodent dragged through the brush’ to ‘frazzled secretary’, and he had at least forty percent fewer coffee and ink stains on him.

But what had caught Rose’s eye was one Kanaya Maryam, who was standing a little off to the side. She was wearing a form-fitting sleeveless red dress, which really brought out her eyes, and showed off the musculature of her arm very well as she held a heavy-looking box above her head with one hand while watching the argument with an amused look on her face, her jade scales glimmering gem-like in the sun.

Rose was _transfixed_ . 

“Material Plane to Lalonde, come in Lalonde.” No answer.

Dave wound up snapping his fingers by Rose’s face to get her attention; it took three tries before she noticed.

“Oh. Right. What were we talking about again, Dave?”

“Just ask her out already, Rose.” 

The two of them had spent a fair bit of time hanging out since Kanaya’s rescue; they had gotten on spectacularly well, regaling each other with tales of their respective adventures, discussing literature and fashion and other interests, and clearly enjoying the hell out of each other’s sesquipedalian loquaciousness.

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple.” said Rose, as the two of them resumed walking.

“Oh, why the hell not.” said Dave, exasperated.

“I was the one who rescued her recently, remember,” said Rose. “I wouldn’t want her to feel beholden to reciprocate my interests simply because of that.”

“Oh come on, Rose, getting saved from peril by a sexy mysterious heroine is, like, the best way to start a romance. And she is definitely into you. Remember when she made that fancy-ass tea spread for the two of you the other day and was all demure about it and shit?”

“She might have just been being friendly.”

“Seriously? Rose, I’ve seen actual enchantment spells that don’t affect you half as much as you were fascinated just now.”

“It’s true that Kanaya is an exceptionally beautiful and charming woman, but- oh. Hello, Karkat.”

Dave glanced around, startled. Apparently Karkat had finished shouting the argument into submission and had caught up with them at some point. He and Kanaya seemed pretty close; hopefully this wouldn’t be awkward.

“I’m not sure how much of our conversation you might have overheard-” Rose started.

“She likes watching sunsets and sunrises,” Karkat cut her off, “and very rare steaks, which the half-elf cook in the third mess tent on the left will prepare for you if appropriately bribed, and her favorite flower is, if you can believe it, roses. She’s free tomorrow night.”

“Oh.” Rose blinked a few times. “Thank you.”

“Please don’t break her heart or anything; as her best friend, I would be required to try and seek retribution on you, and I don’t want ‘eaten by horrorterrors’ to be my epitaph.”

“Not to worry, Karkat,” said Rose, who was suddenly smiling very widely. “I have no intention of doing anything of the sort. Are you coming to the council meeting?”

“In a minute. I need to talk to Strider.”

“Very well. I will see you shortly, then.” Rose walked off, and Dave could have sworn that she almost had a little skip in her step.

“Hopefully that should work out,” Karkat muttered as she left. “Kanaya’s been pining about how Rose might be out of her league for a bit now.”

“I sorta figured it might be like that,” said Dave. “So, what’s up?”

“I just wanted to let you know that I should be free later tonight, if you wanted to talk about bard stuff.”

“Oh, sweet. Let’s do it then. Meet you by Jade’s house after dinner.”

“Sure.” Karkat affirmed. He glanced down awkwardly a bit before continuing. “I also wanted to, I don’t know, thank you, I guess. I was all frustrated and shit yesterday, but talking to you helped. Thanks.”

“Anytime, man.”

Karkat flicked through a sheaf of papers he was holding.

“I’ve got to get to that meeting. See you tonight, I guess.”

“Later, then.”

Karkat walked briskly off, and Dave continued meandering along. What a nice bunch of interpersonal interactions that had been.

Malicious! That rhymed with pernicious. Their whole worldview is pernicious, cuz their Condesce is malicious; perfect. When their rebellion’s great arsenal was assembled and ready to be unleashed upon the Alternian Empire, it would not be lacking in sick fucking beats. Dave ambled down the way, humming under his breath and waiting for inspiration for another bar to strike. What a nice day it was.


	10. Meeting

Feferi stood at the head of the table in their makeshift meeting room, waiting for everyone to arrive and flicking through her notes. Some big decisions needed making today, so everyone was going to need to be here before they started. Most of the people they needed were already in the room, at least. Jade was sitting halfway down the table, carving a rifle stock; Aradia was sitting just to Feferi’s left, smiling at nothing in particular while waiting patiently. Vriska and Terezi were having a whispered conversation together on the opposite side of the table from Jade, and Kanaya had just sat down at the far end of the table and started sewing something. 

Some of the newer leaders were with them too. Azryll Selles, the black-scaled dragonborn woman who was the most senior of their Legislacerator contingent, sat between Feferi and Terezi, fidgeting with her sword. Alexis Remy, the pale-skinned human man who had sort of charisma’d his way into being a military commander for a lot of the random assorted rebels, was drumming his fingers impatiently on the table in his seat down by Kanaya. Ashlyn Peonie, the no-nonsense halfling woman who had led the cadre of rebelling dockworkers to their ranks and subsequently came to co-head all of their engineering projects with Jade, was looking intensely over a blueprint for some kind of ship, making notes as she went.

Funny how all of their names started with A. The universe could be fun like that.

Rose swept into the room, looking about as cheerful as Feferi had ever seen her, and sat down next to Jade.

“Karkat should be along momentarily.” she said.

Feferi nodded in acknowledgement. It was actually still a little before the scheduled start time, but apparently everyone was eager to go. A few moments of impatient fidgeting later, and Karkat entered, sitting down heavily in the chair at Feferi’s right and slamming his ever-present stack of paperwork on the table.

“Now that we’re all here,” said Feferi, as everyone’s heads turned towards her, “let’s get started. First off, have there been any new problems that have come up since our last meeting?”

“The new transport ships are gonna have to be delayed,” Ashlyn grumbled. “The wood that was set aside for the keels turned out to not be strong enough.”

“There’s a really nice stand of oaks up in the northwest corner of the island,” said Jade. “Would you be able to use those?”

“Maybe? That sounds promising, but I’d have to take a look at them to be sure.”

“I’ll show you later, then.”

“Anything else?” Feferi asked.

“Yeah, we’ve kinda got a problem with the weapon smuggling.” said Vriska. “My suppliers in the imperial center have been having trouble with this new Legislacerator lady who got put in charge of some of the customs shit. Apparently she’s a lot more thorough than they’re used to; she actually got a couple shipments.”

“Do you know her name?” asked Azryll.

“Yeah, it was, uh, something with a T…”

“Good old Thwacky!” said Terezi.

“Ah. She means Thiawi Lorros.” Azryll clarified.

“She used to thwack trainees with the flat of a sword if they didn’t answer her fast enough.” explained Terezi. “And if you didn’t have the right answer she’d use the edge.”

“Lorros is an exceptionally strict, thorough, and dedicated Legislacerator. She won’t be bribed, deterred, or threatened, and I doubt that you’ll be able to find any blackmail material on her either.” Azryll soberly informed them.

“I’ll get it taken care of.” Karkat waved her off as he wrote a note down somewhere. “Anything else?”

Nobody said anything.

“Then on to the main point,” said Feferi. “Are we ready to start taking offensive actions against Alternia?”

“We aren’t having any particular supply problems right now,” said Karkat, “but I can’t guarantee any supply chains unless we have some success in naval warfare.”

“We still don’t have the transport to effect any major landings, but our warships are ready to go.” said Ashlyn. “With the modifications we’ve made, they might even be better than the standard naval ones in some respects.”

“Even if it’s not as big a fleet as I’d like,” said Vriska, “five cruisers, ten frigates, the Arachne, and a buncha converted merchant ships is enough to do some raiding with. And the crews are at least up to the point where they can be trusted to sail around without wrecking anything.”

“Ground forces are at about the same level.” Alexis chimed in. “I think some limited combat experience might be helpful? That musketeer battalion still needs work though.”

“And we have some targets to choose from, since there still aren’t that many Alternian forces in this area. Surprisingly few, in fact.” Terezi tapped an intelligence report, looking pensive.

“Anything on your end, Kanaya?” Feferi asked.

“Alas, no. My people sympathize with our cause, but will not risk taking action against Alternia that invites potential reprisals unless we appear to have at least a reasonable chance of victory.”

“If they’re just going to sit on their claws until a successful rebellion fucking gift wraps itself and drops out of the sky on them, they might be there until they get fucking hemorrhoids.” Karkat groused.

“I have told them as much, more politely of course, but they do not seem to agree.”

“Well, it can’t be helped, then.” Feferi said with a sigh.

“I’m still wondering about why there are so few Alternian military forces around right now.” said Jade.

“Yeah,” Vriska spoke up, “you’d think that there’d at least be more patrols or something, but if anything, there’s less.”

“Maybe they’re afraid of a repeat of our previous encounter?” Rose mused.

“Karkat, you’ve been collating the intelligence reports,” said Feferi. “Has there been any new military activity lately?”

“Loads, actually. Just none of it to do with us.”

“Huh.” Feferi stroked her chin thoughtfully.

Karkat had dug out an Alternian newsheet from his paperwork.

“Yeah, we just found out how yesterday they were crowing about Condy herself leading the First and Second fleets to take some place called Haven’s Crown-”

“Wait, Haven’s Crown?” Feferi cut him off, startled.

The primarily dwarven Kingdom of Burrowdeep, to the north of the collection of assorted islands that made up most of Alternia, had long been a target of imperial expansion. Alternia had seized possession of nearly all of its coasts at one point or another, but had never been able to maintain a firm hold, because the critical area of Miner’s Bay, and the Rusty River that fed into it, were protected by Haven’s Crown; a massive fortress hewn into a mountain by the mouth of the river, bristling with tens of thousands of Burrowdeep’s best soldiers and every weapon imaginable. The fortress had been held for nearly two centuries, and Alternian strategists had determined nearly a hundred and fifty years ago that it would never fall without the personal aid of Her Imperious Condescension. 

But she had never made the attempt before. Many imperial generals speculated that the empress liked being able to have the war in the north turn on a predictable lynchpin, or didn’t think that the prize was worth the casualties that would be incurred; Feferi personally thought that she just liked having an impossible task to assign to commanders she didn’t like or wanted to toughen up, since the northern coastlines weren’t where the real profit in expansion was anyway. But whatever her reasoning was, she had kept to it for longer than most Alternian citizens had been alive. Why change her mind now?

“Yeah, Haven’s Crown.” Karkat said. “Buncha expansionist stuff happening right now, actually. The Sixth Fleet is apparently taking some pretty heavy casualties because the Condesce told them to take Javelin Point at all costs, and the big bad lady herself is already taking the Second Fleet and moving on down to some Sahuagin citadel in the west that’s been giving them trouble-”

“Wait, she’s not sticking around up north? Who’s moving on to take Amberton?” The plan for crushing Burrowdeep once Haven’s Crown fell had been in place for decades, were they not following it?

“Uh,” Karkat checked the newsheet, “no one is, the First Fleet is sticking around to fortify Haven’s Crown against potential counterattacks.”

But that made no sense! Burrowdeep’s military structure was centered on the fortress; if it had fallen, they would be in disarray. Forget counterattacks, it would take a miracle just to stop the capital from falling if the Alternians pushed on. Why delay and give the enemy time to reorganize?

“Perhaps the empress is hoping that some patriotic fervor will work against the rebellion.” Rose suggested.

“Maybe she thinks we aren’t threatening enough to worry about, or that she’ll provoke more unrest by coming down too hard.” Aradia suggested, more optimistically.

“No.” said Feferi. “That’s not like her.”

When the surviving ship captain from their earlier victory had made his report, the Condesce had been angry enough to dismember him right there in the throne room. She never let up when she took something personally, and Feferi had seen the look in the empress’ eyes after their assassination attempt; she had taken it very personally.

Aradia shrugged. “You know her mindset better than me. What do you think she’s doing then?”

“I’m not sure. Someone get me a map.”

Vriska laid a seachart of Alternia and its environs flat on the table.

“Karkat, tell me everywhere that Alternia has taken or is trying to take right now.”

Karkat did, and Feferi marked them off as he went; Haven’s Crown, Javelin Point, Sorossi, Fort Refutation, Laqueros, and Solitaire Island. They all had some things in common, at least; all were major fortresses in highly defensible positions that were lynchpins in the defenses of major Alternian enemies. Bizarrely, all of them opened up huge avenues of advance against said enemies, but in every case the Alternians were simply hunkering down and making sure that the captured fortresses could never be taken back anytime soon. It made no sense, unless-

“Staging areas,” whispered Feferi as a thrill of horrified realization shot through her.

“Sorry?” asked Aradia.

“She’s capturing every place that could be used as a staging area for an attack on Alternia, and setting them up so that the borders can be defended with as small a force as possible. She’s not ignoring us, she’s getting rid of distractions so she can focus on us.”

A worried silence fell around the table.

“Well, fuck.” Terezi voiced everyone’s thoughts.

“It all makes sense.” Feferi continued. “She’s been talking more about dissent in recent years, and expanding judicial powers over the central areas of the empire. She tried to implement a policy that would increase her direct control over the empire and hamper resistance, and within a week and a half there was an assassination attempt on her from within the royal house itself. She must have decided that now is the time to lock down the borders and get to work on a thorough purge.”

Alexis looked a little panicked. “We can’t handle the whole Alternian war machine! Should we scatter, or go underground, or-”

“She’ll turn the whole empire upside down,” Azryll remarked grimly. “There’s no getting away now.”

“We still have some time.” said Feferi. “There’s still a number of places that they need to get to, since Alternia has a lot of borders and a lot of enemies. Plus, the fortresses they’re going after are tough clams to crack, even with the empress around, and she can’t be everywhere at once. But we need to move quickly.”

“What do you suggest?” asked Aradia.

“We should start making raids against as many Alternian targets as we can. Our two priorities should be eliminating as many small enemy forces and outposts as possible, and attacking the logistics of the fleets on the borders to try and prolong their campaigns as long as possible. If we manage a lot of victories in this period, we can try and build up enough recruits to have a chance against the whole military. Hopefully the Alternians will take a lot of casualties in their offensives, too, so things will be a bit more manageable.”

“I’ll take the Arachne out at dawn tomorrow,” said Vriska. “What should I hit first with that cannon of Jade’s?”

“Forts. Anywhere they can dock or resupply that you can get to. We’ll start arranging the less imposing ships into raiding parties to go after enemy logistics.”

“I hate to say it,” said Jade, “but we should probably have some people look around for backup bases in case we need to leave this island in a hurry.”

“That too.”

“I’ll do what I can with underworld stuff.” said Karkat. “See if we can arrange for any saboteurs or anything.”

“Pirate grapevine!” Vriska snapped her fingers like she’d just remembered something. “I’ll start spreading rumors about the imperial convoys having good cargoes and things like that. That’ll get some pirates going after them.”

“We’ll redouble our training efforts,” said Alexis. “Round the clock, until they’re completely up to speed.”

“Don’t break them, Alexis.” said Aradia. “If they’re exhausted and demoralized it’ll be as bad as if they were undertrained.”

“Well, we don’t have much time, remember?” Alexis snapped.

“Everyone, please.” Feferi raised her voice a little bit. “We knew this wasn’t going to be easy when we signed up. We have a hard road ahead, but if we can walk it, we have a rare opportunity. The Condesce is bringing a lot of power to bear on us, yes, but it’s going to cost her. Attacking bordering enemies all at once like this is going to stretch the military thin. If we can prevail, or even make it a good fight against them, it may be too much for Alternia to handle. There’s a possibility that this might jumpstart the collapse of the whole empire, but it’s up to us to make it happen.”

Another brief silence fell as everyone contemplated the weight of it.

“Well,” said Jade, “let’s all do our best, then.”

“It sounds like we’re gonna need transports sooner rather than later,” Ashlyn said, rising from her seat. “Let’s go take a look at those oaks you mentioned.”

“I’ll pull together some lists of targets that we can start sending ships against.” Vriska was already digging through maps.

“Aradia, if there’s any messages you think might get more recruits, get them to me and I’ll get them disseminated through Alternian territory.” Karkat had passed a stack of reports on nearby Alternian bases to Terezi and was handing off pen and paper to Aradia.

The meeting swiftly fell into an energetic mess of planning, and as Karkat started grabbing passers-by to run messages, Feferi couldn’t help but smile, despite the gravity of things. They might not win against Alternia, but if they didn’t, it wouldn’t be for a lack of good people on their side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't even do the three A names on purpose. I just thought that was funny.


	11. More Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should take a moment to note that I have yet to read the epilogues, and have only heard secondhand things from them. But like I said in the tags, post-Cascade canon is just a suggestion box, so ideas I heard about that I liked(Roxy trans) are being used, and ideas I'm not interested in(Jane apparently going all fascist, Dirk going full-on anime supervillain) have been acknowledged and ignored.

Jade paused for a moment to enjoy the sea air and the noon sun before tossing a piece of driftwood down the beach for Bec to chase, the big dog nearly knocking Karkat over in his enthusiasm as he passed. The two of them were waiting for the rest of Jade’s family and friends, along with some others, to arrive on their ship, the Tipsy Kitten(they had let Roxy pick the name).

“So, who are these people again?” asked Karkat.

“They’re like our cousin-siblings, sort of.” Jade answered as Bec brought back the stick and settled down to gnaw at it.

“Wait, how can you be both? I thought humans weren’t into incest.” said Karkat, puzzled.

“There’s nothing like that! It’s- well, it’s kind of a long story.”

Karkat peered out towards the horizon and looked around for a bit.

“We appear to have jack shit else to do for a while,” he said. “Come on, spill.”

“Okay, so, me and John and Dave and Rose were all foundlings, and we all grew up with just our guardians, for starters. We all wound up meeting each other by chance on various adventures, and we got to be really good friends, especially since we were all kind of young when we got started.”

“Uh huh.” Karkat made a sort of ‘go on’ hand gesture.

“But as we adventured some more, and got involved in this convoluted prophecy scheme, we kept finding references to how we were destined to help save the world from this big monster thing, and it kept referring to Dave and Rose and me and John as siblings. And after a while, it turned out that we were actually birthed as part of this weird magic ritual where we wound up sending our own essences and our guardians’ essences back in time to create them and ourselves, then our guardians got sent to this planet on meteors and then we got sent years afterwards to where we were destined to get found, grow up, and then go do the ritual and create ourselves, and because of the way the ritual went, Dave and Rose are actually biological siblings and so are me and John.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah, apparently being created out of a stable time loop makes us harder to effect with time shenanigans or something. Anyway, after we found out we were related by blood and destiny as well as by liking each other we were all pretty happy about that, and then later we wound up traveling to this fucked-up alternate version of the Prime Material Plane.”

“Hold on-”

“And there was a version of the prophecy and the ritual there too, except because of some weird temporal stuff, in the other universe, the four of us were the guardians and the alternate versions of our guardians, well, technically John’s guardian’s mom not his guardian but whatever, they were our age, and our alternate selves were all dead, and we wound up working with our guardians’ alternate selves to try and save their dimension from this messed-up guy with glowy rainbow eyes who blew up planets.”

“Wait, wait, wait-”

“And we won, except that their dimension was still completely ruined and got destroyed, so we had to bring all of the survivors back to this dimension, and now they live and hang out and adventure and stuff here with us! And it’s sort of like they’re our parents but also we’re sort of like their parents, and it’s also like having siblings cause we’re the same age, but also like having cousins maybe cause we didn’t spend as much time with them when we were younger, so like cousin-siblings, I guess, and anyway they’re all great and I can’t wait for you guys to meet them!”

Karkat paused to take all of that in.

“Your guys’ lives must be real fucking interesting.” he said after a moment.

“You’ve got that right!” Jade laughed.

“No wonder you were ready to jump into a war at the drop of a hat, this must just be another Tuesday for you.” Karkat shook his head in amazement.

“It’s not, though! Meeting new friends is always special, you know, no matter how many times it happens.”

“Hey, that’s nice. Thanks.” Karkat suddenly seemed to realize something. “Wait, so if you guys in the present created yourselves in the past, and then your past selves became your present selves and created yourselves, where the hell did you come from in the first place?”

“I don’t know! I guess that’s why the ritual is special.”

Karkat was still staring off into space making little confused noises when Kanaya swept down to the beach.

“Good morning, Jade. Is Karkat alright?” she asked, a little bemused.

“Yeah, I was just telling him about our family history.”

“Ah, yes, Rose explained it to me in some detail. It was quite fascinating.”

“Are we all just little smears on the face of time?” Karkat asked, dazedly. “Is there something outside of time and space that plays with us like little fucking felt cutouts on a wall?”

“Perhaps.” said Kanaya, smiling. “In any case, I have brought the latest news from Alternia.”

She handed Karkat a newsheet, and he snapped out of his reverie to leaf through it.

“Anything big?” Jade asked Kanaya.

“The imperial campaign to secure the borders continues apace, but nothing new of particular import occurred that I had noticed.”

“Ha!” Karkat triumphantly held up the paper, pointing to an article on the third page.

Jade and Kanaya leaned in to read it over; Thiawi Lorros, the Legislacerator who had been giving their shipments trouble, had been found by the waterfront with a concussion and forty-seven stab wounds.

“I still have a hard time believing that Slick just lets you sic him on people like that,” said Kanaya, shaking her head wonderingly.

“Well, first off, we’re actually paying him out of the miscellaneous budget every time he does something like this, but also, it’s not like Spades fucking Slick needs a whole lot of incentive to stab someone, you know?”

“Good point.”

“Hey, I think I see something out there.” said Jade, shading her eyes against the sun. “Wait. That’s three ships. Who- oh. Looks like the Arachne had a good morning.”

The Arachne skimmed gently into dock, towing a pair of Alternian frigates behind it.

“Hey, Jade!” John called as he hopped the rail and took to the skies. He had decided to tag along with the Arachne’s raids, since his flight and strength made him very helpful to have along and he could communicate with the three of them in an emergency.

“Hi John. Good hunting?” 

“Yeah, I’ve got to go get Ashlyn so she can take a look at these. Be right back!” He soared off, waving.

“Harley, your cannon is awesome!” Vriska yelled down at them. “Took out a frigate with one shot, right to the powder hold! The other losers surrendered the second they saw it.”

“We ran into a patrol.” Terezi explained. 

“What did you do with the crews?” Karkat asked Vriska.

“Took all their stuff and set ‘em adrift in the longboats.” 

“I still say we should have just killed them.” Eridan grumbled.

“That would send very much the wrong kind of message about what kind of resistance we’re running here, Eridan.” said Terezi, smiling at him with all of her pointy teeth on display.

“You should have tried to recruit them is what you should have done.” said Karkat.

“Hey, we thought of that!” Vriska shot back. “But we didn’t get any takers.”

“Apparently the empress put out an order that anyone who deserts the imperial military to join a rebellion gets everyone they care about executed.” Terezi explained.

“Oh, well, that’s just great.”

“Anyhow,” Vriska continued, “we just stopped by to drop off the ships and the stuff we captured, then we’re headed back out to see if we can find more prizes.”

John dropped back out of the sky to touch down on the Arachne’s bow.

“Ashlyn’s in the middle of supervising a keel-laying, but she’ll be down in a bit. Also, I saw Jane and Roxy and everyone’s ship in the distance while I was up there, they should be here in a few minutes. We should wait a little before we take off so we can say hi.”

“Sure,” Vriska shrugged.

“I’m gonna take a look at that cannon, just to see how it’s doing under field conditions,” Jade said, snagging a rope and clambering on board.

“Knock yourself out.”

“Hey Karkat, have you finished the paperwork to get a proper courtblock set up yet?” asked Terezi, sliding down a rope and landing on the dock.

“No, I haven’t. You know, the construction requisition forms can be filled out by anyone. You could, I don’t know, _do it yourself_.”

“But I’m a very busy woman, Karkat,” said Terezi, shit-eating grin locked firmly in place. “And I’m also blind. You wouldn’t make a blind woman do her own paperwork, would you?”

“We both know that you can still write just fine because you’ve got freaky fucking skills and you practiced it for Legislacerator training, and because the notes you leave when you need me to mutilate my schedules around your trial thingies are all impeccably legible.” Karkat snapped back.

“Maybe I get someone else to write them for me.” The shit-eating grin had yet to budge.

“Terezi, I know what your goddamn handwriting looks like.”

“Do you, though?”

Karkat let out a frustrated noise that made him sound a little like he was being strangled, before launching into a profanity-laden tirade that Jade tuned out as she inspected the cannon. Everything was in perfect shape; good. She’d been a little worried about how it would hold up with the moisture and salt, but the anti-corrosion coating was working fine and Vriska’s crew had apparently been following the maintenance instructions she’d given them perfectly. It was always nice to have people who listened to their engineers.

“- and skewer me in the heart with a dull fucking pencil!” Karkat was finishing. Kanaya had politely covered her smile with her hand behind him.

“Whoa.” John, from his perch on the bow, looked a little awed. “I think I learned some new words there.”

“My, you’re shouty today. Here.” Terezi handed Karkat a folder, and he looked it over.

“Oh, look,” he said, teeth gritted, “a completed construction requisition form. In triplicate. How very kind of you, you goddamn jackass.”

Terezi laughed and laughed, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll swing by and help you out a bit once we’re done with this trip.”

“Hey, everyone!” The Tipsy Kitten finally pulled into harbor as Roxy called out, the deck teeming with the refugees from the lost dimension that Jade and her friends had helped them escape from.

Jade and John both ran over to the rail and braced themselves, and a moment later Roxy hit the both of them with a huge tackle-hug that knocked them all back a few steps. Roxy was big on hugs.

“Sorry it took so long for us to get here,” Roxy said. “Jane had to finish putting down an epidemic in Amiston, and we had to get the ship together for everyone who wanted to come and help and-”

“Hey, it’s okay. We’re just happy to have you guys around.” said Jade.

Roxy grinned and crushed Jade in another hug. 

After more hugs with Jake and Jane, and a coolguy style nod of acknowledgement from Dirk, they debarked to meet the others. Jade covered the introductions. Jane perked up when Jade explained that Karkat was sort of the quartermaster general.

“Oh, good, you were the first one I was going to look for. We need to talk about the disposition of our volunteers.”

“Right, sure.” Karkat pulled out a blank sheet of paper and a pencil. “How many, and what kind of combat experience do they have?”

“About two hundred, and they’re noncombatants.”

“Noncombatants?” Karkat looked up, puzzled.

“Yes, they volunteered to do rear lines work. Mess hall, infirmary, and so on. They’re not really fighters.”

Karkat held up a finger. “Let me get this straight. They’re just here to help with the support stuff.” 

“Yes.”

“They’re not at all interested in combat training or drills or anything like that?”

“Is that a problem?” There was the tiniest hint of an edge in Dirk’s question.

“They’re just going to run the important support stuff, without having scheduling conflicts or people trying to pull them away for exercises or complaining about having to do scrub work or anything like that.”

“That would be the case, yes.” Jane confirmed.

If there was a nirvana for administrative types, Karkat looked like he had just caught a glimpse of it.

“I think that will work just fine. Come on, I’ll show you the facilities.”

Karkat and Jane walked off inland, discussing a bunch of bureaucratic stuff.

“Well, isn’t that nice. I was worried that people wouldn’t be interested in anyone who didn’t want to fight.” Roxy said.

“Karkat’s been pulling his hair out since people got here trying to organize a consistent medical and support stuff, this is really helpful. Though I’m surprised you brought them.” said Jade.

“I wasn’t going to, but they asked where we were going and insisted on coming along. I love those guys.” Roxy smiled and wiped a tear from- wait, it wasn’t ‘her’ eye, was it?

“Did I hear right that you changed your pronouns?” Jade asked.

“Yep! I’m a they now. For now, at least, I’m just kinda seeing what feels right.”

“That’s great! I’m so happy for you!” Jade said. “If there’s anything I can do to support you, just let me know.”

“Thanks.”

“Has it felt good?” John asked, a curious expression on his face. “Like, are you happier?”

“Oh, yeah. It feels, I dunno, freeing. Like a burden was lifted once I could be honest with myself and say it out loud.”

“Huh.” John had a contemplative look on his face.

“Hey, John, we should get going!” Vriska called. Terezi had finished having some kind of friendly staredown with Dirk despite neither of them being able to make eye contact with each other, and the Arachne’s crew was pulling up the anchor.

“Oh, right.” John shook himself out of his thoughts. “We’ve got to go be pirates. It’s great to see you guys, we’ll catch up some more when I get back, okay?”

“Have fun, John!” Roxy yelled, waving at the Arachne as it started pulling out of the harbor.

The whole gaggle of Roxy’s people was spilling off of the ship, and Bec had left the pulverized remains of his stick to bound up and greet them.

“We should get everyone moving and get settled in.” said Dirk. “Catch up with Dave and Rose, too.”

“I should also get going.” said Kanaya. “It was nice to meet you all.”

“See you around, Kanaya.” Jade replied. “Say, have you talked to Rose lately?”

“Not since yesterday evening, why?”

“Oh, nothing.” She certainly wasn’t asking on account of the very nice bouquet of flowers that she had helped Rose put together after breakfast this morning, no.

“I am not sure that it is actually nothing, seeing as you felt the need to ask.” Kanaya pointed out.

“It is….” Jade paused dramatically. “A mystery.”

“Oh?” Kanaya raised an eyebrow(or at least the spot where an eyebrow would have been if she wasn’t a lizardfolk). “I shall look forward to its resolution with bated breath, then. Have a good day, Jade.”

“You too!”

“Looks like that’s everyone. Where are we going with them?” asked Roxy.

“Come on, I’ll show you the way.” Jade started towards the camp, Bec bounding at her side. Some people would be feeling a lot more down, with a war against the full might of a grand empire looming over their head. But Jade Harley was never one to feel down when she had her friends at her side. Alternia was going to have its work cut out for it, going up against them.


	12. Vexillology

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've got chapter titles now, how fancy.

No matter what kind of tension people were under, life went on. In Feferi’s opinion, that was one of the most wonderful things about people. Even knowing the grave struggle that lay ahead of them, everyone on the island was working and coming together in all sorts of ways.

Jade’s other friends (wait, some of them were family, weren’t they) had proven to be an enormous help. Jake English, a boisterous human man with the same dark skin and curly black hair as Jade, had taken over command and training of their musketeer battalion, and since unlike Jade he didn’t have any other responsibilities, it was going much better.

Jane Crocker, a human woman who looked very much akin to the other three, had taken over a lot of the administrative stuff from Karkat, and the combination of her no-nonsense lectures and Karkat’s extra-nonsense yelling meant that Feferi didn’t have to drop what she was doing to try and coerce highbloods into not being assholes or otherwise mediate so often. 

Roxy Lalonde, a tiefling with midnight-blue skin and short hair dyed in riotous colors who was apparently in the process of figuring themself out, didn’t take on any leadership roles, but they were great for morale, as an ever-present friendly face who was happy to teach martial skills to anyone who asked (and having sparred with them herself, Feferi could state with confidence that Roxy had one hell of an uppercut).

Dirk Strider, a tiefling with red-orange skin and an ever-present pair of dark pointed glasses over his eyes, was somehow even more enigmatic than his brother Dave, but he was invaluable in a planning session, and some ops he had designed had secured valuable supplies and intelligence for them. And some of the plans he came up with! Feferi had never considered disappearing someone with a portable hole and a bag of holding before, but it had worked pretty great, especially since the fact that no knew where the regional governor had gone created a lot more chaos than if they’d simply killed him.

Between the four of them and the gaggle of friendly people who had tagged along with them to help with support tasks, training and military engagements were going very well. The ground forces were looking better and better, and their navy was growing, too. More ships had been captured, and supply deliveries continued unimpeded. 

Cooperation between their various groups was getting better too. Terezi had talked Azryll into training some of the more honest and diligent rebels in Legislacerator skills, so that was another source of skilled fighters. Their highblood recruits were more cooperative lately, as Feferi’s campaign of losing sparring matches against the ‘lower’ classes was starting to have the desired effect. She had also sorted out the highbloods into combat teams and put the more tractable ones motivated by simple adventurism or some kind of sympathy in charge, and the ones motivated by simple greed or desire for power on the lower rungs. Of course, between Jane and Karkat’s efforts, the valuable reserves of personal money and materiel that they possessed had all been more or less fully taken over by the rebellion anyway, so it wasn’t a huge deal, but still.

Most hugely, House Arraia’s shadow army had finally arrived. The various Alternian noble houses existed in a constant struggle for influence and power, with their own private armies and access to huge resources. Of course, no matter how good their political maneuvering was, they could never pry any real power away from the Condesce (who nonetheless encouraged the infighting, mostly, in Feferi’s opinion, because she thought it was funny, though she supposed it helped keep them sharp a bit too). Noticing how frustrated that made the leaders of House Arraia, and arranging the covert talks that got her the use of their private army (carefully furnished with non-highblood officers and non-Alternian ships and weapons so it couldn’t be traced back to them) had been one of Feferi’s biggest diplomatic successes. Theoretically, the mostly midblood officers were loyal to Arraia and were only working with the rebels to advance their house’s interests, but, well, Feferi had seen how they were reacting to the spirit of cooperation and not getting talked down to all the time. Funny how that worked.

Meanwhile, the Arachne was quickly making itself one of the most infamous ships on the high seas, tearing apart Alternian frigates and corvettes with impunity. Nothing fast enough to catch up with the Arachne was a match for that special cannon, and nothing that could stand up to the cannon was fast enough to catch it. Their other naval forces were active too, going on raids planned by Vriska, and, lately, Dirk. Feferi had led a few herself, and they had all gone quite well. Most of the Alternian outposts near the island had been destroyed, and Alternian patrols no longer dared to venture with a hundred kilometers. The Condesce was apparently too determined to lock down her borders in preparation for the upcoming purge to send any real reinforcements, and they were determined to take advantage of it while it lasted.

The only serious new problem for them at the moment was the various edicts that the Condesce had sent out making it riskier for people to try and defect to the rebellion by threatening their loved ones, but even that had been mitigated. Roxy had suggested running rescue operations for the affected people, and so they were. They had converted a number of their smaller, faster ships, including a number of Alternian corvettes that had been captured in the raids, into stealthy blockade runners, and with the help of the surprisingly large number of magic crystal balls that Rose, Vriska, and Dirk had been able to procure between them, they soon had a coordinated network of rescue operations going, assisted by volunteers from outside the empire that Kanaya had managed to get in contact with through her lizardfolk connections and her previous work with charitable types.

Of course, it was only a matter of time before the borders were secured and the military came down on them hard, but for now, things were going well, and life went on in any case. People even were getting into romance. Most notably, of course, was when Rose had presented Kanaya with a spectacular bouquet of flowers and politely invited her for a sunset dinner on the beach, which had apparently gone very well if the way Kanaya wandered around the next unable to get the big smile off of her face was any indication.

Kanaya had a similar smile on her face right now as she sat across Jade’s living room from Feferi, sewing up the tears in some spare sailcloth, while Rose leaned up against her shoulder, peering into a crystal ball. Feferi was looking over a map of Alternia, trying to pick out the best places to try and have a battle when it came to that, when Karkat walked in, carrying a few big pieces of cloth in a couple of different colors.

“Kanaya, can I borrow one of your spare sewing kits?” he asked.

“Certainly.” 

“Thanks. Hey, Feferi, what do you want on your new banner?”

“My new banner?” Feferi asked.

“Yeah, your new banner, you’re a cavalier, aren’t you? You should get one already.”

“Oh. Right.” Somehow she’d forgotten to take care of that recently.

“Right indeed, and seeing as how several someones have conspired to make sure I don’t have anything else to do today, Dave is busy, and Kanaya has her own sewing projects going, I thought I would go ahead and volunteer.” 

The several someones had been Dave, who had ended a marathon session of bard training by using a bardic suggestion to get Karkat to get some sleep, and Jane and Terezi, who had taken care of everything that might have come up in the intervening time period. It had worked, too; Feferi hadn’t seen Karkat looking this energized in a month. And he was progressing as a bard, too; Feferi had volunteered along with Gamzee the other day to be practice dummies as he learned to lay a suggestion on people, and it had worked. Sure, she’d shaken it off immediately, but there had been something she’d had to shake off. Progress!

“So if you have any ideas,” Karkat continued, “let me hear them, assuming you can bear to have my sloppy-ass embroidery flapping above your head.”

“Karkat, I’d be honored. Thank you. Now let me think…” Feferi looked up at the ceiling in thought.

“I’m assuming you don’t just want another one like your old one.” Karkat said.

“Definitely not.” Her old standard had been a gold trident on a silver shield, all on a fuschia background. It had very much been a royal-style banner, and as such would not work at all anymore. But what to replace it with?

“Maybe a decapoqus head or something?” Karkat suggested as he picked through the available threads and pulled out a thimble.

“No, that’s not it.” Feferi thought about some of the other flags she knew. Alternian flags and emblems of all stripes generally made liberal use of purple, silver, and gold. The Condesce’s personal banner was a double-ended trident in gold on fuschia, and the general Alternian flag was the same, except with a pair of tridents crossed instead. Foreign flags came in all shapes and stripes, but there wasn’t anything particularly inspiring in them that Feferi could think of. Most of the resistance movements of the past hadn’t had very coherent symbology (either that or the history had been suppressed); even the Sufferer’s irons had only come into use after his death. But the Summoner had once had a flag, Feferi had seen a depiction of it on a tomb-diving expedition with Aradia; a black lance shattering a fuschia shield, on a sky-blue field. Maybe that was a good starting point. Breaking the imperial power.

Feferi turned to look out the window, hoping for inspiration. The first thing she noticed was the joyful scene just outside; Becquerel, Sepida, and a bunch of the cats that seemed to congregate whenever Roxy was anywhere nearby were playing in the meadow, romping happily through the flowers; Nepeta was there too, having shapeshifted into a tiger in order to enjoy it properly. Perhaps she was helping keep the animals distracted so that they didn’t wander into anyone else’s pursuits. Jade and Equius were in one of Jade’s crafting areas, collaborating on the biggest, sturdiest-looking crossbow Feferi had ever seen. Roxy was a little way off, teaching a diverse group of students how to do a roundhouse kick. Aradia, Sollux, and Eridan had pulled out a blackboard from somewhere and were working out something magic related on it. Gamzee was sitting under a tree with a drink, enjoying the sun. Staccato pops of musket fire sounded from where Jake was drilling their musketeers on aiming towards the other end of the island, but everyone was long used to that. Everywhere Feferi looked, she saw the same thing; people of all stripes, assembled for a common purpose; to fight the empire. 

An idea came to her.

“Karkat,” she asked, “what was it you said Slick once told you about your blood?”

“He said that everyone bleeds red in the end.”

Red, huh.

“I have an idea,” Feferi said. 

A few hours of companionable hanging out later, Karkat was finished. 

“How does it look?” he asked, holding it up for inspection.

Feferi took in the design she had come up with and Karkat had brought to life; an ocean-blue field, featuring the imperial golden trident being shattered by a red spear coming up from below.

“It’s perfect!”

Karkat had even incorporated her suggestion for the spear’s coloration; the red shaded from a more magenta hue at the base, to a regular red in the middle, to the vibrant candy-red of Karkat’s own blood at the tip.

“Well, I’m glad you like it.” said Karkat, clearly very pleased about it.

“It is rather nice,” said Kanaya. “Your embroidery is getting better.”

“Say,” Feferi asked, “have we decided on a battle standard to distinguish our ships in combat yet?”

“No, why?” Karkat answered.

“Because I think we might have just found one. Let me get some opinions.”

And after consulting a few people in a hurry, their rebellion had its flag, and the various people on hand with some textile skills set to making enough for their ships and soldiers. Feferi made sure to keep the original with her though; it was good luck going into a fight with a token from a friend.


	13. Dealing With Problems

Karkat blinked tiredly in the pre-dawn light as he made his way down to the command tent in answer to the urgent message Feferi had sent to basically everyone. About halfway down, he ran into Dave.

“Man,” Dave muttered, “whatever she’s calling us about had better be good to get us up this early.”

“If it’s so important that everyone has to be there right now immediately after we found out about it, it’s probably bad.” Karkat pointed out.

“Ah shit, you’re right. Better brace for impact.”

The two of them made their way into the packed room, where Feferi was standing at the front with a map of Jade’s island and its environs pinned to the wall and holding a stick.

“Good morning, everyone.” Feferi began. “I’m sorry to have to get you all on such short notice, but I’m afraid we have a problem. Last night, Roxy was leading one of our blockade runners back home after a successful mission, when they encountered an Alternian corvette that hadn’t noticed them yet and decided to board it. After the ship was captured, they discovered its most recent orders: the Seventh Fleet is mustering to attack this island, and they’ll be here tomorrow morning.”

A ripple of shock ran through the room.

“Weren’t they working on securing the borders?” Alexis asked.

“Most of the Alternian military is still occupied with that, but the Seventh Fleet’s campaign went better than expected, and they took Solitaire Island yesterday. Apparently the Condesce has decided that messing with us is worth a little bit of dividing her forces.” Feferi paused for a moment, before speaking again.

“We have two choices here: stand and fight, or try and evacuate this island. Anyone have any thoughts on that?”

“Evacuation isn’t the worst thing we could do, now that we have more transport ships.” Alexis started.

“On this short a notice?” said Ashlyn, skeptically. “We’d be very vulnerable in transit.”

“A bunch of our ships are already out on raids right now anyway, and we have the forces built up to try and disperse into several centers of resistance.” Alexis countered.

“We’ve already got messages out to our ships that are currently at sea.” Jade interjected. “They’ll all be back by this evening.”

Wasn’t there something about the Seventh Fleet? Oh yeah, that was right-

“That task force we annihilated was detached from the Seventh.” Karkat pointed out. “Between that, the casualties they must have taken from taking Solitaire, and the garrison they had to leave there, the fleet is probably pretty understrength.”

“Our preliminary estimates suggest that the Seventh Fleet is indeed only at about two-thirds strength for this offensive.” Azryll confirmed. “However, that is still sufficient to outnumber us by about twenty-five percent. Additionally, their navy has a much higher proportion of proper ships of the line.”

Rose raised a hand from where she was apparently looping in the crew of the Arachne over that magic talking gem. “John says that Vriska said to tell you that the Seventh’s commander, Admiral Enguia, is nothing special but is competent enough and won’t make any stupid mistakes.”

“Twenty-five percent’s not so bad.” said Jake, cheerfully. “Especially with all of these guns that we’ve got here.”

“It is still something of a risk,” Equius mused.

“Well, we’ve got to fight them _sometime _.” Nepeta pointed out.__

__“Yeah,” Karkat added, “or would you rather wait until the Condesce can free up three more fleets and really pen us in somewhere?”_ _

__“We should fight.” said Dirk. “The Condesce is going all out on her plan to purge the empire, and while it does create a very dangerous situation, her plan does have one major weakness: it puts a lot of strain on her military. With all of the casualties they’ll be taking securing the borders, attrition is very much our friend. An understrength naval unit attacking a fortified island? We might not get another opportunity like this for a while.”_ _

__“Yeah, not to mention we’ve got adventurers coming out of our ears here,” Aradia piped up. “I say we let them have it!”_ _

__Most of the room yelled out an affirmation at that._ _

__“Apparently Vriska is raring to go.” Rose reported._ _

__Feferi looked thoughtful for a moment._ _

__“I’m worried that there might be an angle.” she half muttered, before lifting her head and speaking more firmly. “Still, whatever angles might come up, it’s probably better to face them here rather than alone out at sea. Let’s fight.”_ _

__More cheering._ _

__“Let’s get the scrying and the scouting in order,” Feferi said, raising her voice over the din. “We need to keep close tabs on the position of the fleet. They’ll most likely come in from the southwest, but they could try something tricky. If there’s any supplies or other stuff you need to get in order, do it now. Let’s get this planned out.”_ _

__Karkat shoved his way towards the front as the crowd dispersed to go and get a million different things done._ _

__“Karkat, did you get the special supplies I had asked for?” Aradia asked as she passed him._ _

__“You mean your creepy pile of skeletons? Yeah, in the shed out past the north end of the camp.”_ _

__“Thanks!” Aradia bounced cheerfully out of the room, presumably to go and do some necromancy, while Karkat went to make sure that the planners were appraised on what they had to work with._ _

__After a lengthy-ish discussion, they agreed to try for a modified version of one of their contingency plans against invasion. As the fleet approached, they would identify the spot where they intended to land, and have most of their sturdiest troops waiting to hold the enemy off, while getting all of their defensive guns aimed. Meanwhile, the rebellion’s own fleet would be dispersed a little ways off from the island, waiting, and reinforcing the illusion that they had been taken by surprise. As the imperial force ran into the defenses and got held up and bunched up, the rebel fleet would move for a surprise encirclement, and together with the shore-based guns would trap the enemy in a killing field. The ground forces not dedicated to the main defense would be held in reserve to either shore things up as needed or sweep in to finish off the enemy once the trap was sprung._ _

__Karkat wasn’t much of a tactician on any scale larger than the average sports match, but everyone else seemed to like it. Even Alexis’ nervous ass apparently liked the freedom of maneuver it gave them. With things settled, they dispersed to make sure everything was ready for the coming morning, and brief everyone on their role; Karkat himself was going to be sticking with Feferi and Kanaya at the front. Feferi had offered to let him lead one of the reserve groups, but he wasn’t about to let them get in harm’s way without backup. Of course, that meant that he’d have to be in the thick of the fight, and do well enough that they wouldn’t have to cover for him. Shit._ _

__Karkat was too busy making sure all of the ammunition and building supplies were in the right places to give it much thought for most of the day, but late in the evening, with all of the preparations taken care of and the whole island in a state of restless anticipation, he found himself sitting in his little makeshift office, still in Jade’s kitchen (he should really get around to moving it sometime), quivering with nerves when he should have been trying to get enough sleep._ _

__What if he couldn’t manage out there tomorrow? Would someone get hurt? Would it be better if he just stayed back? But how could he stay back while everyone else was fighting? He had to do _something_ to help. But what if-_ _

__“Can’t sleep?” asked Dave, who was suddenly leaning on the doorframe._ _

__“Fuck!” Karkat, rudely startled from his anxious spiral, fell right out of his chair._ _

__“Do you have to be so quiet all the time, Strider?” he asked once he had gotten up and pulled a little bit of his dignity back together._ _

__“Absolutely.”_ _

__“Yeah, whatever.”_ _

__OK, but seriously,” said Dave, “what’s still got you up? You nervous?”_ _

__Karkat looked Dave over, trying to figure out why he felt the need to butt in here. Of course, Dave was hard to read, especially since he was still wearing the damn glasses. At night! How could he even see right now?_ _

__“Not that it’s any of your business,” said Karkat after a moment, “but yes, I am experiencing a little anxiety, as one does before going off to fight in a gigantic goddamn battle. Not that your high-level ass probably knows anything about that.”_ _

__“Don’t be too sure, man.”_ _

__“Seriously?” Karkat looked at him, a little incredulous. “You are, and I quote, ‘really fucking good’, aren’t you? What do you have to worry about?”_ _

__Dave shook his head. “Like I said before, in a big battle like this all sorts of things can happen. Besides, I don’t really like fighting more than I have to.”_ _

__Karkat blinked. “But you’re so good at it.”_ _

__“Oh yeah, and don’t get me wrong, I can fight when it’s important. But, well, I don’t really care for it. Not when it’s for real. But my friends need the help, so I’m going to go for it and just do the best I can. That’s all you can do sometimes.”_ _

__“Easy for you to say.” grumbled Karkat. “When you can slice people up like nothing and still do the healing in between.”_ _

__“Are you worried about not being strong enough to help out there?” Dave asked._ _

__“Oh, would you just go away already.” Karkat snapped._ _

__“Oh, alright, that’s it then. I’ll go.” said Dave, starting to walk away. “But first, let me just say this. Your friends aren’t all keeping a list of the things you do for them in their heads all the time, you know? Like, if you just do your best to help out, they’ll understand that and appreciate it. Don’t stress out too much about not being good enough.”_ _

__Huh. Maybe Karkat would have to think about that a little._ _

__“And go to sleep already,” Dave called back as he left. “Trust me, you don’t want to fight a battle when you’re sleep-deprived.”_ _

__Karkat stared off into space for a little while longer, thinking._ _

__“Well,” he said to himself after a while, “it’s not like staying up angsting about it is going to help anything.”_ _

__And with that, he padded over to the couch, laid down, and stared at the ceiling until he could will himself to sleep._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next, a big-ass battle that will be the climax of this particular fic so we can finish establishing the main plot and setting and do some more character focused pieces. Should be up in a day or three, hopefully.


	14. Impact

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wound up splitting into two chapters for readability, whoops.

Rose looked warily out to sea from her position near the front of their lines on the shore, waiting for the enemy to arrive. Everything was ready; the Alternian fleet was indeed coming from the southwest, as predicted; the rebel fleet was scattered about in such a way that it could easily muster when the time came, and the shore guns were prepared and aimed. She was standing a ways in from the north end of the line of rebel troops waiting by the landing zone, Dave and Jade at her side, Becquerel tensed in front of them. John was still with the Arachne, since Vriska was commanding their naval forces and they could talk to John over the gems to keep her in the loop. The other end of the ground troops was anchored by Feferi, Kanaya, Karkat, and Sollux; the center was held by Jane, Nepeta, Equius, and Gamzee. Jake was towards the back on a little ridge with their musketeer battalion; Dirk and Roxy were at the head of one of the reserve groups, Aradia and Tavros were with the other, waiting to unleash their summoning and necromantic magic at the perfect moment. Aradia had actually already started a bit with the necromancy the previous day; there were a few sheds out in front of the army filled with them, since she had made so many she couldn’t actually control them all.

All in all, things were going as well as could be expected. Feferi had been nervous about whether there might be an unexpected angle, but there was nothing that Rose could see that looked liable to go wrong, as the Alternian fleet slid into view.

Hells, they didn’t even seem to have that many fliers in the air; maybe they could clear the skies to the point that Rose could just shapechange into a dragon again and blast through them.

“That’s odd.” said Jade, lowering the scope from her eye.

“What’s odd?” Rose asked.

“They’ve got all their transports and big warships, but I don’t see any frigates or smaller vessels, and they’re clustered awfully close together.”

“That just makes the plan easier, right?” Dave asked.

“Yeah, but it’s weird. Vriska said that this Admiral wouldn’t make stupid mistakes.”

They watched as the fleet drew closer and closer. And then, just before they came in range of the larger guns, it started. There was a great sort of sizzling, cracking noise, and Rose felt the tingle of a grand magic being worked.

And the Alternian fleet was suddenly shielded in an enormous dome of wind, blowing so strongly that it was difficult to even see through it.

“What the hell!” exclaimed Jade. “Where’d they get that?”

“Can our guns even shoot through it?” Dave asked.

A few testing shots skimmed off harmlessly even as he spoke.

“Guess not.”

“Maybe we can get at them underwater?” said Jade, hopefully.

Feferi had apparently thought the same thing, as she spurred her mount forwards to take a look below the waterline, coming back a moment later shaking her head.

“Too many seadwellers waiting below.” she called.

Just then, John’s mental voice came into their heads.

“There’s a bunch of Alternian frigates out here now.” he said. “It looks like they were trying to surround the island and ran into us by accident. Vriska thinks we can take them, but we’ll be delayed. Gotta go, we’re in combat.”

Rose relayed the message to Feferi. The Alternian ships were nearly to the shore, a few last cannonballs still pinging uselessly off the shield.

“Well, we’re in for it now.” Feferi said. “Brace yourselves, everyone!”

The enemy pulled up so close to shore that some of the deeper-drafted ships probably ran aground, and as the transports dropped ramps, a hole opened up in the front of the shield, and the first Alternian soldiers came through.

“Polar Midnight!”

Rose’s spell enveloped quite a few of them in Stygian cold and blackness. Arrows and bullets cut more down, Jane threw in a Flame Strike, and Sollux tossed in a Fireball. This wasn’t so bad; if they could only open up one hole, the rebels could bottleneck them-

Several more holes opened up, and more Alternians charged up the beach unmolested. Now that Rose looked at it again, the soldiers that had fallen in the first breach looked to be mostly the more expendable sorts. Damn it.

The enemy attacked, led this time by not only good old Subjugglators, but also the elite sickle-wielding Threshecutioners. Behind them came rank after rank of common soldiers, backed up by clerics and wizards. More little holes in the shield popped briefly open towards the top, and Alternians riding on sea drakes and various other flying creatures soared down to harass them. Extra fliers waiting on the decks. How annoying.

The two armies came together in a horrible clash of metal sounds, and it was on. Rose lashed out with spells, trying to focus on the stronger enemies. Jade’s gunshots cut down more, and Dave stuck close to the two of them, slashing into enemies who came too close while yelling encouragement to the other soldiers around them. Bec stuck close to Jade, biting at people and pulling them around to open up better shots for her.

Everything were holding for the moment, and everyone was fighting hard, but things were quickly starting to look rough. The undead left in sheds as traps didn’t work as well as hoped; a quick-thinking Threshecutioner officer had noticed them and had arranged squads to surround them and prevent them from interfering with the general advance. The rebels were starting to take some serious casualties from enemy magic; Sollux and the smattering of weaker arcane casters they had were still holding the enemy wizards mostly at bay, but the enemy’s fliers were a serious problem. Rose had already used all of the summoning spells she could spare to conjure up flying monsters, and Tavros had brought in some flying creatures as well, but the enemy was still getting plenty of opportunities to take potshots at their soldiers. The rebels’ healing magic was keeping up well enough, especially with Jane’s help, but so was the enemy’s, and the Alternians could probably keep it up longer, not to mention that they had more troops to begin with. Jake’s musketeer brigade was shoring them up with well-timed volleys, and Aradia had already committed the reserves under her command, while Dirk maneuvered towards the edge of the battle looking for an opportunity, but it wouldn’t be enough. The enemy just kept coming and coming, and unless the rebels could do something about that shield, they would inevitably be overrun.

\------------------------------------------------------------

As the Arachne lured a pair of enemy frigates into coming at it from opposite directions to try and trap it, John took to the skies to perform what was one becoming of Vriska’s favorite maneuvers. Soaring past the hasty shots launched by the enemy crew, he looped around to the back of the ship and smashed the rudder to pieces with a swing of his hammer. A little ways off, Eridan did the same to the other ship with a burst of flame, and the two ships that had been trying to turn to catch the Arachne between their broadsides found themselves locked on course straight at each other, too close to maneuver away in time with just their sails. The Arachne sailed merrily on, and as the two enemy vessels collided and were hopelessly entangled, a carefully aimed shot from the stern chaser holed one near the waterline, dooming both.

John quickly caught back up with the ship, glancing over towards the island and that weird shield the Alternians had come up with, concerned. As he touched down, he found himself in the middle of an argument.

“We can handle this, alright!” Vriska was yelling angrily. “We’re kicking ass out here!”

That much was true. The enemy ships (and it was only frigates and corvettes, too) had been deployed in a very spread out fashion, and had apparently only been expecting to intercept fleeing rebels rather than fight a real naval battle. They had been very surprised to find the rebel fleet all in the area, and since all of their heavy hitters were currently both escorting and serving as troop carriers, the Alternians were at a serious disadvantage, especially since the Arachne could kill them with impunity; the special cannon blew a mast off of another enemy ship even as John thought it. Very soon, they could proceed with the plan and encircle the main body of the enemy fleet. But would that even matter?

“Nothing we can do is gonna get through those air elementals,” Eridan was saying. “It’s hopeless! Let’s just try and get a message to Fef and the others, and swing by and pick them up. We can maybe hide out in the-”

“Oh, shut up, will you!” Vriska cut him off.

“He does have a bit of a point, though.” Terezi said. “Maybe we should try and figure out a way to use the fleet for some kind of evacuation.”

“We’ve got to be able to figure something out.” Vriska had started pacing in frustration.

“I’m telling you, there’s no way.” 

“I said shut up, Eridan!”

“Wait.” John had just realized something. “Eridan, did you say air elementals?”

“Yeah, that shield is made of ‘em. They’re magically summoned and bound by these fancy crystal things. It was Solitaire Island’s big defensive work, the Condesce was always on us at the Imperial Academy for not being able to duplicate it. They must have captured it when they took the island.”

If it was made of air elementals, then John had a magic ring that was going to be very handy.

“Vriska, can you handle things here without me?” John asked.

“Sure, I guess. Why?”

“I think I can do something about the shield. Just get the fleet in as soon as you can.”

“On it.”

John took to the air and flew at top speed towards the island. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too late.


	15. Opportunities

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that brings the first part of this fic series to a close. Up next, now that the main setting and conflict setup are out of the way, some more character focused side bits. On the docket, in no particular order: Karkat backstory, Feferi backstory, June Egbert's hatching, some Rosemary, DaveKat shenanigans, and who knows? I get a lot of ideas.
> 
> Also I just realized I should probably mention that this chapter has a POV of someone nearly drowning, if that's a phobia or whatever for anyone.

So that’s what the angle was, Feferi reflected grimly as her trident cut down another Threshecutioner. She’d never have expected that the Alternians would have been able to capture Solitaire Island’s famous Grand Wind Aegis intact. The Condesce had apparently assumed that if the Seventh Fleet was equipped with it, they could just sail right up and capture the island, undermanned-ness and lack of intelligence be damned. And unfortunately, it was starting to look like she might have been right.

The rebels were still holding, but it was getting tenuous. Casualties were heavy, and the healing was starting to run a little low. Everyone was still taking serious hits from the fliers. Sollux and Aradia were still holding off the enemy arcane casters, and Rose, Dave, and Jade were holding the north end of the line firm, but the center was hard pressed. The main focus of the enemy attack was there, and it would have broken by now if Aradia hadn’t committed her part of the reserve force there earlier. Even now, it was bad; Admiral Enguia had entered the fray herself with even more Subjugglators and Threshecutioners and taken them right up the middle, and it was all anyone could do to hold them back. It was a desperate struggle to keep them off of Jane, who was keeping everyone alive; Equius and Gamzee were both locked in battle with Subjugglators, while Aradia and Tavros frantically slung spells and Nepeta fought a brutal battle alone against the admiral. Jake’s musketeers were still bailing them out with well-placed volleys, but they couldn’t keep it up much longer. Dirk had finally given up on trying to find a way to turn the battle and was bringing his reserves up to Feferi’s position. Maybe they could push towards the center and relieve them a bit.

Of course, that was assuming their army held together. Order was breaking down under the pressure, and a lot of people were looking nervously towards the rear. Alexis in particular seemed ready to try and order a retreat and hope that the rebel ships could pick some of them up, but others were starting to try and figure out ways to withdraw too. Feferi wanted to try and rally them, but she was too occupied with staying alive.

As she stabbed at more enemy soldiers from atop of Sepida, she caught a glimpse of something moving in from the sea; it was John, flying at top speed. Hopefully that meant the naval battle was going well. She had expected him to fly to his friends, or maybe to try and save the center, but instead, as Feferi swept aside a few more soldiers to get a moment, he went right for the shield. Was he going to try and break it? It was hard to picture him having more success than the cannons had. And even as skilled of a flyer as him couldn’t make it through those winds, right?

But even as Feferi watched out of the corner of her eye while fighting, John hit the shield, and the winds stopped around him, the shield morphing and deforming, almost as if it was afraid to try and touch him. He shot right through, and Feferi felt a moment of hope. If the shield broke, their guns could destroy the ships and the troops they still had onboard and they could turn this around.

A few moments later, John came out of the shield at the bottom, chased by a cloud of arrows, a few spells, and a quartet of Subjugglators. Well, it had been a nice idea while it lasted. 

Wait a minute. While John had been pushed back a bit, he was still standing firm at the edge of the shield, and there was a gap around him. He wasn’t that far from Feferi’s position, the water was shallow enough and the Alternian ships were pushed close enough together for a ground engagement, the line between Feferi and the gap was thinning as more enemy forces were diverted towards the center, and Dirk’s reserves were just coming up. 

And Feferi saw a beautiful, beautiful chance come together.

“Everyone!” she yelled. “Together! There’s a gap, come on!” 

But there was no response. The battle was too chaotic, and too many people were looking for a way out. No matter how much she tried, she couldn’t get anyone who wasn’t right next to her to listen. The army was starting to break; people towards the back were starting to filter towards the forest, and Alexis had found a clearing of calm and was clearly organizing some sort of retreat.

Damn it all! They had a shot, but she couldn’t get them to realize it. If only-

A hand brushed her leg.

“Clarion Call.”

Karkat looked up at her, bloodied from the battle but still looking grimly determined.

“You’ve got this.” he said, before turning back to join Kanaya, the two of them lashing out with everything they had to give her a moment to work with.

Feferi smiled, took a deep breath, and yelled.

“Everyone!”

This time, Karkat’s magic let her voice ring out like a great bell. Alexis and the others stopped to look at her, as did most of the soldiers who were fleeing.

“We still have a chance! I know it looks grim, but if we fight together, we can do it! If we lose here, we might never get another chance to bring down Alternia!”

Dirk, and Roxy at his side, were urging their troops onwards, Dirk apparently having seen the same chance as Feferi.

“So come on,” she continued, “and let’s give it all we’ve got! And even if we fail, we’ll at least know we went down as a brave and fighting people, instead of like cowering animals!”

Sepida reared up dramatically under her as she waved the banner that Karkat had made in the air.

“Charge!”

And without looking to see who followed her, Feferi urged her mount forwards at full speed into the enemy. There was a roar of voices and a rush of movement behind her, and shortly after she hit the enemy lines, a whole lot of other people did too. Karkat and Kanaya came in on either side of her, hacking away while Karkat yelled encouragement. 

“Kanaya,” Feferi said, speaking more normally. “Go and help Nepeta, we need to make sure that Admiral Enguia is too occupied to organize a response.

“I’m on it.” She turned and darted away.

“Haste!” Dirk had caught up with them, and buffed Kanaya as well as the rest of them.

“Thank you!” Kanaya called as she blurred towards the center.

Dirk turned his attention towards the fight, he and Roxy attacking together in mesmerizing sync. Alexis had apparently been heartened by Feferi’s words, and was leading everyone he could muster forward, spear in hand.

Soon they had fought their way up to the gap in the shield that John was making, and the fight intensified, as the fleet threw everything it could at them to close the hole.

“So what now?” Dirk asked, as the charge and countercharge began to stalemate each other.

“We keep pushing,” said Feferi, “and hope someone finds an opportunity.”

\-----------------

In an incredible turn of events, there was a hole in the shield, and Jade was pretty sure she could find an opportunity in there. It was just her and Bec making their way over to the gap; Rose, upon seeing the charge, had shifted into dragon form to keep the skies above them clear. She was taking a lot of damage, but she could hold out for a little while yet. Meanwhile, Dave had to stay back to make sure that their part of the line held. But he had cast Haste on Jade before she had left, and that helped a lot. 

As she ran through the space that the charge had opened up, she slipped her rifle into a waterproof sack and dove underwater. There were still a few seadweller guards around, but they were mostly occupied with the fight at the gap, and anyway she was a ranger. She could be sneaky when she needed to.

After getting under the shield, she surfaced and climbed on board a ship. She hadn’t been noticed yet, but with this many enemies around it was only a matter of time. She had to move quick. The shield seemed to be emanating from the center of the fleet, so that was where she was going. But how to get there? Looking around, she noticed that the ships were so close together that you could conceivably jump from crow’s nest to crow’s nest, particularly if you were under a Haste spell. Perfect.

She quickly climbed the rigging, Bec (who as an experienced animal companion was far better at climbing and jumping than he had any right to be) following closely. The startled lookout in the crow’s nest took a shot to the face, and Jade was off, leaping dramatically from ship to ship, shooting enemies in her path as she went. Bec followed, occasionally stopping to bite at someone Jade had missed. A few deck-bound enemies spotted her, but she was moving quickly enough that the few arrows that were loosed at her all missed, and soon she was at the magical device that powered the shield, which looked sort of like a giant upside-down chandelier studded with white gems, manned by a lone wizard and guarded by two bored-looking Threshecutioners. Jade snagged a rope and slid down, firing one-handed as she went. The wizard and one of the Threshies went down; the other rushed her as soon as she hit the deck, but got checked by Bec and got one between the eyes. 

Jade turned to the device, wondering how to break it. Kicking it did little damage; a few hard smacks with the butt of her rifle would shatter a gem, but there were enough gems to make that particular method take far too long. Soldiers on neighboring ships were starting to rush over, and she didn’t have much time. Only one thing for it, then.

“Bec, fetch the boom.” The dog hurried off to do it, while Jade started picking off incoming soldiers. She got a lot of them, but there were a lot more coming, most notably more Threshies, who ran in serpentine patterns that made them a lot harder to hit, especially with the Haste spell wearing off. She took a few hits as they made their way on board and herded her away from the device. Jade was good at dodging, rolling about the deck and downing another enemy every time she could take another shot, but she was starting to get kind of slashed up, and the Threshies were well-coordinated, forcing her towards the bow, where she had less room to maneuver. But that was okay, because she just needed a few more moments until-

Bec barked as he dragged a barrel up from the hold, left it in plain view on the deck, and jumped overboard.

Jade grinned, then whirled about and ran full speed up the bowsprit, chased by the enemy. As she got to the end, she turned and jumped backwards, aiming carefully and shooting the barrel full of gunpowder that Bec had dragged up, which chained to the other barrels he had left in a line leading to the powder hold, and blew up the whole ship. She was so glad she’d taught Bec that trick.

The shockwave of the explosion hit her like a blow from a hammer, sending her crashing hard into the water. Before she could start to swim away, she felt something pulling her down. That stupid device was generating some kind of whirlpool as it sank, and while Jade was a good swimmer, she wasn’t that good. Shitfuck.

As the pressure dragged her down and she started to run out of air, she reflected that she really ought to have prepared Water Walk today. But alas, she had wanted to have as many healing spells as possible, and hadn’t anticipated having to fight a whirlpool. She tried swimming out to the side instead of up, but that just got her caught in the current. She had dropped her gun at some point, too. That was annoying.

More swimming. Still getting nowhere. The lack of air was really starting to get to her. Man, she’d hoped she would get to live longer than this. Oh well. At least it was for a good cause.

There was a push at her side, as Bec tried to pull her back up, with equally little success. Aw, she’d hoped that he’d at least make it out. She tried to shoo him away, but he wasn’t having it. Good dog. Best friend.

As the water started getting into her lungs, she was about to resign herself to her fate, when suddenly a strong grip caught her by the collar and started pulling her up fast. A few moments later, she found herself deposited on all fours on the deck of a ship, her rescuer placing a comforting hand on her back while she hacked up a lung and a half’s worth of seawater.

Once she’d gotten ahold of herself a bit, she looked up to see who had saved her, and found herself looking at Feferi’s concerned face.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Jade answered. “Wait, where’s Bec?”

A little boof off to her side answered her. 

“That’s a relief.” Jade fought her way up to a sitting position, still feeling a little delirious, as Feferi checked her over. You know, she’d never noticed it before, but Feferi’s hair was really pretty when she was all damp like that. She really was a sea creature, huh.

Feferi suddenly blushed fuschia for no apparent reason, unless-

“Did I say that out loud?” Jade asked.

“A little bit. It’s fine.”

“Thanks for the save, by the way. I owe you one.”

Feferi smiled. “All things considered, I think I still owe you a couple, but you’re very welcome.”

She reached out to help Jade to her feet.

“We should go.” Feferi said. “Our troops are withdrawing so the guns have a clear field.”

Jade nodded. “Ready to go, Bec?”

Bec got up and shook himself vigorously, spraying the both of them in seawater.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” 

The three of them piled onto Feferi’s mount and rushed back towards shore, followed by the rest the soldiers, with Dirk and Roxy leading the rearguard action. As soon as they were clear of the enemy ships, the rebels’ shore based guns finally opened up.

The guns had mostly been quiet up to this point; once it had become obvious that the shield was impervious, they had stopped firing to conserve ammunition, and they hadn’t been used for the ground battle, since it was too closely packed to fire into safely and a lot of the cannons couldn’t depress low enough anyways. But now the main body of the Alternian fleet was unshielded, packed like sardines in a can, and anchored helplessly at nearly point blank range. Not to mention that the guns that loomed over them were very good; Jade should know, she’d made most of them herself.

The first volley echoed in the distance like a thunderclap, blasting spars and decks to pieces and throwing enemy soldiers in the air like they were dry leaves in a windstorm. The shots kept coming and coming, and ship after ship went under, annihilating countless Alternians.

Back towards the center, Admiral Enguia had noticed the sudden reversal, and was fighting with renewed fervor to try and bring down Nepeta and Kanaya so she could lead a retreat. Nepeta finally dropped with a dozen wounds, and Kanaya’s sword got batted from her hands by a vicious swing. Enguia triumphantly chopped down at her, but Kanaya caught the sword between her hands. Not very elegantly, mind you; you could see the blood trickling down her arms, but she was still holding it in place. As the admiral tried to pull the blade loose, Nepeta willed herself back to her feet, and shifted one last time into the form of a tiger, lunging at Enguia under where her and Kanaya’s arms were locked in struggle, and absolutely savaging her, teeth in throat and claws under the ribcage. The admiral fell dead, and Nepeta turned on the nearby enemies, roaring. More than a few of them simply turned and fled at that.

In fact, the morale situation was mostly reversed everywhere. With their ships being decimated and their leader dead, the Alternians were shocked. They were running for the ships, trying to sail away before it was too late. Of course, the rebel gunners were well trained, and had made sure to hit a lot of the ships at the edges first, so the wreckage got in the way of the ones trying to flee. The regular troops mostly abandoned the elite ones in their rush to escape; the Subjugglators were all left behind in the spots where they refused to leave the fighting, surrounded, and brought down by weight of numbers, and also by Dave, John, and Roxy, who had ignored the fleeing foes to help make sure there weren’t too many casualties among the rebels. The Threshecutioners had formed up in an orderly fashion, and were working in unison to push some of the wrecked ships out of the way and make some of the intact ones ready to sail, undaunted by the mass of fleeing soldiers or the hail of cannon fire. Man, were those guys professionals or what? Some of the Threshie officers were starting to rally the regular ones, and it looked like they might try one last push to get through the rebel forces, which could be rough, since even though their morale was rejuvenated by the sudden turnabout in the fight, the rebel army was still pretty haggard.

But as if in answer to her thoughts, a second chorus of cannonfire started up from the sea, as the Arachne led their victorious fleet in to finish the encirclement. After that, all that was left was the waiting, as the cannons tore the trapped enemy to pieces, with only the occasional desperate charge or band of surrendering foes to deal with. The Threshies actually somehow managed to get one ship out of the killing zone, but it was quickly chased down by the Arachne and went straight to the seabed.

And then, after a couple hours of blood and terror, it was over. The Alternian Seventh Fleet was no more. One down, six to go.

Hours later in the evening, after the cleanup, Jade was sitting by a fire, cleaning her rifle (Vriska had, at John’s request, badgered Eridan into going and getting off of the seafloor). Everyone was exhausted, most of them were still various degrees of injured, and also a little sad, but also elated, in the curious way that only the victors of a hard-fought battle could experience. Most of the others were arranged in bands, eating, drinking, and catching up with each other; Jade could particularly pick out Vriska, going on very loudly about the Arachne’s exploits and waving a mug of something that most likely wasn’t water. Everyone was very touchy-feely too, in a ‘yay-we-lived’ kind of way. Also, a still heavily bandaged Nepeta was using the late Admiral Enguia’s elegant gold-filigreed and gem-encrusted sword as a roasting spit for a haunch of venison, which was hilarious. All in all, it was as nice of an evening as could reasonably be expected after a battle like that.

Feferi came and sat down next to her.

“You know, I never got around to thanking you properly.” she said after a moment.

“For what?” Jade asked.

“For, I don’t know, everything. When we first washed up on your island I thought we were done for. But then you helped us, and kept helping us, and now we just beat the freaking Seventh Fleet. And this whole time, you’ve been doing everything you could, and even risking your life. None of this could have happened without your help. Thank you.”

“Hey, you guys have been giving it your all too. I just helped put a few things together. Like I said, when good people come to me needing help, I’ll always be there.”

Feferi smiled and gave her a big hug. As the sounds of people celebrating and recovering flowed around them, Jade watched and smiled. Alternia was still out there, but with people like this at her side? Bring it on.


	16. Epilogue

Her Imperious Condescension stormed into her chambers aboard her personal flagship, fuming. The latest news about the rebellion was infuriating; she hadn’t been this angry since the Summoner, no, the Signless. How could the Seventh Fleet, with a magical artifact of incredible power backing it up no less, not only fail to take one measly island, but fail so badly it no longer existed as a meaningful fighting force! Admiral Enguia was lucky she had died in the battle, because if she had lived, she would have gotten fed to the fucking piranhas an inch at a time.

Earlier in the day, she had taken out her frustrations on a Sahuagin fortification, which meant that there were a whole lot less Sahuagin to deal with at least, but she was still enraged. The gall of that Feferi. And who the hell were these adventurers that were apparently backing her up anyway?

She stormed into a back room, where a weird magical device that looked like a green grandfather clock with a mirror in it awaited her. Her ally had a little explaining to do.

Once she touched the clock and focused, the entity appeared in the mirror and spoke in its calm, mellifluous voice. 

“Good evening, empress. How can I be of assistance?”

“Skip the pleasantries, I’m in a bad mood.”

“Ah, yes, the defeat.” The entity nodded. “I can see how that would be a problem.”

“Why the hell didn’t you say anything about it when you told me how to take the wind shield intact? Aren’t you supposed to be omniscient?”

“Nearly omniscient, yes, but there is a difference between knowing everything and knowing which of the things that you know will be important. Such things happen on occasion, though it is odd that I didn’t see what might happen at that battle. How did they lose, anyway? Let me see… Oh. Those four.” The entity generally didn’t display much emotion, but the Condesce thought it sounded a little annoyed.

“You know those adventurers?” she asked.

“We’ve… met. But this is still only a minor setback.”

“Minor? We lost a whole fuckin fleet! Our deal says that you’d make sure that my empire triumphs over everything it faces! What the hell are you going to do about this?”

“Do you intend to keep up your end of the bargain?” the entity asked politely.

“Yeah, you’ll get your damn sacrifices for whatever creepy-ass things you do with them.”

“Then you have nothing to worry about. I’m already dispatching some of my agents, and I’ll be looking into this personally. Everything should go more smoothly from here.”

“Well, good.” The empress broke the connection and stormed away to go yell at her troops some more. As its image on the mirror faded, the entity got in one last line:

“Let it not be said that Doc Scratch doesn’t keep his promises.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Between the Lions voice* Cliff Hanger, hanging from a cliffff! And that's why he's called Cliff Hanger! (Technically more of a sequel hook, but whatever.)


End file.
